As a sophomore in high school, I had a baseball coach who believed in me and encouraged me. He sensed that I’d had some tough times growing up, although we never spoke about them. His unselfish love had such a powerful, positive effect on me that it became the springboard for progress in my life.
Maybe you have had someone like that in your life, someone who profoundly believed in you, saw you as good and worthy, and encouraged you. This person might not be on any “World’s Greatest” list, yet their influence on you was invaluable. Or maybe you have been that kind of supportive person to someone else. What a privilege it is to love and nurture someone forward.
What is behind the most powerful goodness, encouragement, and love we can receive or offer? Through my study and practice of Christian Science I’ve found that the goodness that truly transforms lives has its source in something so much bigger than any human personality – its source is God, whose message of goodness comes to each of us through Christ.
“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, teaches, “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332). Jesus so fully lived the comforting, healing Christ that he has the title of Christ Jesus. Sometimes it’s helpful for me to think of Christ as God’s voice. I’ve found that Christly messages – which God is constantly communicating to all of us – are catalysts to changing for the better how we think and perceive things. The result of listening to God and embracing what we hear is reformation and healing.
What is it that Christ communicates? The spiritual reality of existence, starting with the absolute perfection of God, Spirit. As we begin to know God’s presence and perfection, it’s natural for us to feel more aware of God’s perfect goodness expressed in us and others. That’s because we all, in the highest sense, are the creation of God – entirely spiritual, made to show forth God’s nature.
Anytime we choose to allow God to improve our perspective about ourselves or someone else, we experience something of the magnificent uplifting power of God – which in turn empowers our efforts to nurture and help others.
At one point I was asked to help children who’d never lived in stable families. After my powerful experiences with that high school coach, it felt like an opportunity to pay it forward. Being involved with this was so rewarding, but it wasn’t always easy. What really helped me support these children as best I could was opening my thought to the Christ, consistently praying to see each of them just as God was seeing them – as loved, worthy, and capable.
When the impulse of Christ is behind our selfless love and encouragement of others, it brings the power of God to bear on their lives – and ours, too. There’s tremendous value in a willingness to be a transparency for God’s limitless love and intelligence. Jesus, whose healing example continues to encourage the world, experienced this and said, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10).
The deep feeling of God’s love and power underlying a Christ-inspired change of perspective is the crux of genuine progress. “The effects of Christian Science are not so much seen as felt,” states Science and Health. “It is the ‘still, small voice’ of Truth uttering itself. We are either turning away from this utterance, or we are listening to it and going up higher” (p. 323). Humbly listening to God speak to us in prayer leads us into a new way of thinking, seeing, and feeling that may not make tonight’s national news, but is supremely valuable and important in healing the world around us.
