If someone were to ask you, “How old is the number five?” you would consider it a ridiculous question. You know very well that a number is an ageless idea. It doesn’t begin when you write it on a piece of paper or end when you erase it.
Similarly, we actually have a permanent and ageless identity as the spiritual idea or expression of God, eternal Life, in whom “we live, and move, and have our being,” as the Apostle Paul says (Acts 17:28). And as Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, affirms, speaking of God as Life, “Life is the everlasting I AM, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 290).
I have found in my own experience over many decades that understanding and accepting my spiritual identity as my only real identity, as Christian Science teaches, brings God’s healing power into my experience with very practical, healing results.
So while a physical sense of ourselves may seem very real, the wonderful reality is that you and I can live our ageless being as God’s perfect, spiritual reflection – made in His image and likeness, as the first chapter of the Bible tells us – today and every day. And in doing so, we can overcome every belief in limitation, discord, and disease that is claiming the ability to govern us.
Living our ageless identity does involve work – the work of striving to have one God, Spirit, and to see ourselves and others as God’s perfect, spiritual reflection. But it is joyful work. It’s all about loving God and living in accord with our God-given ageless being day by day. And this way of living brings freedom from whatever is unlike God, good.
For practical reasons, we are sometimes required to tell our date of birth or age – to obtain a driver’s license, to apply for some kinds of employment, to show that we are eligible for government-provided benefits, etc. But none of those human requirements can govern the way we think. And the way we think is what determines our health and well-being. Christian Science has shown me how to live above these human requirements even while fulfilling them. We can do this within our consciousness – by staying true to God, and to ourselves and others as God’s spiritual reflection.
What we’re talking about here is a way of life. We simply don’t have to think of ourselves – or anyone – as an aging mortal.
What we need to do is understand, accept, and live our real identity as God’s expression. This real identity, which each and every person has as God’s precious son or daughter, was never born into matter, doesn’t live in matter, and therefore cannot die out of matter. Each of us has always existed as God’s perfect, spiritual creation, and always will.
Referring to each of us as “man” – a generic term for all – Science and Health affirms, “Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate” (p. 258). That fact is a demonstrable reality!
So, what should we do when pain, sickness, or limitation of any kind seems very real to us? And if the problem appears to have a history – sometimes a long one?
Well, we feel and experience God’s comfort and healing power when we let go of the I-need-to-get-rid-of-this-problem mentality, which is a form of human will. Humility enables us to yield to the comforting and loving will and healing power of God – to acknowledge Him as our loving Father and Mother, who is, and always has been, caring for us every moment. It’s natural to let go of human will when we realize that God is, and always has been, keeping us perfect.
And the relief we feel comes from the Comforter, the divine Science of perfect being, based on the teachings of Christ Jesus. We know that we are whole – and we are healed!
We can all be blessed in this way, decade after decade, through the study and practice of Christian Science. Thank God! Divine Life is ageless, and expressing that in ageless living is such a blessing.
Adapted from an article published in the Feb. 19, 2024, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
