Mrs. Eddy always cautioned those tempted to look to her, or anyone else, “personally” for the Christ, Truth. By her direction we are all students of the Bible and her writings. They are always with us and accessible. Today we will focus on the theme: I will listen for thy voice. Listening for the voice of the Truth that heals is the lost element Mrs. Eddy devoted her life to restoring to Christianity.

Let’s begin at the beginning — Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God ….”

Mary Baker Eddy knew the importance of beginning correctly. “To begin rightly is to end rightly” (Science and Health, 262:28). In our textbook, she starts the chapter titled Recapitulation with the definition of God. What a magnificent gift she has given the world in this revealed definition of God. The significance of that contribution to the spiritualization of thought is monumental.

If “Moses advanced a nation to the worship of God in Spirit” (S&H 220:4) — and that is just the first of the seven synonyms for God — what progress for mankind can follow as they understand individually and collectively the entirety of God’s nature and character.

Mrs. Eddy understood how many ways idolatry can sneak into people’s worship and therefore into their very concepts of reality and being. She created a revolution in thought with her revealed standpoint that united Science and Christianity. She started with a correct premise based on Spirit, God, the All-in-all, that “everything entitled to a classification of truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge or understanding of God…” (S&H 127:4-7).

In all my studies of world religions at the graduate level, I have seen no greater god than God as understood in Christian Science. We may well marvel at the unspeakable gift (II Cor. 9:15) we’ve been given. To get this definition of God right is everything! Mrs. Eddy got this right because she relied on the Bible. It was her only authority. She cites no other guide in the “straight and narrow way” of Truth (S&H 126:29-31).

When you begin with a wrong definition of God it inevitably affects the resulting definition of man. Mrs. Eddy established that “the foundation of all mortal discord is a false sense of man’s origin” (S&H 262:27-28). To get it right one needs to understand the complete character of God. Each synonym has its specific and precise purpose in the definition. It was clear to Mrs. Eddy that “If God were understood and not merely believed, this understanding would establish health” (S&H 203:7-8). We will endeavor today to listen for Thy voice on these matters.

God, the great I AM

Let’s ask ourselves some pertinent questions. How large is your concept of God? The power of understanding and affirming His greatness, majesty, vastness – His Allness – daily and hourly is important.

“Christian Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but ascribes to Him the entire glory” (S&H 262:5-7). To ascribe to God anything less than perfection, goodness or any of his rightful attributes would be to dishonor God. Our priority in the endeavor to understand the fullness of God’s character is to listen only to His voice. This is a powerful step in the way to spiritual growth.

When the initial suggestions of a very aggressive cough presented themselves to my thought while I was driving home from Florida, I naturally turned to God. The atmosphere at work and in Florida had been one of great fear of a long, drawn-out, bone-rattling stint of this socalled malady. That night I awoke coughing as painfully as I have ever experienced. I sat up and declared what I knew to be true about God. I “insist[ed] vehemently … There is no disease” (S&H 421:15,18). I firmly declared that I did NOT believe that a loving God could ever be responsible for inflicting such a thing on His beloved child.

The cough instantaneously disappeared, and that was it. An immediate healing effect followed the sincere declaration and accurate understanding of God as a loving FatherMother. This declaration was undergirded by a supreme certainty. Mrs. Eddy speaks of scientific certainty (S&H 496:17, Ret. 24:10, Pul. 55:19), mathematical certainty (S&H 108:13, Mis. 210:5), solemn certainty (Ret. 31:4) and absolute certainty (’01 2:13). This is one indicator of understanding as opposed to mere belief. When you know the definition of God is right, this lays the unwavering foundation for correct conclusions concerning God’s nature and power. The certainty of inspiration (Pul. 83:10) permeates the textbook, the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s other writings. When we listen for Thy voice there is no doubt or uncertainty when it speaks it heals you.

Let’s look at this idea of coming to a position of attention, spiritually…or what it means to listen for Thy voice. (Hymn 304, verse 1)

I had an early insight when my family moved from a very small town in Michigan to Oklahoma. At the first recess at my new middle school I played with another quiet young girl. I had never seen persons of differing races. By the second recess the white children cornered me against a brick wall.

A girl who was probably well over five feet tall stepped out in front and demanded to know, “Are you a Yankee or are you a Rebel?” I turned with my whole heart to God and I stopped listening to the kids. I knew from Sunday School that I was a child of God, made in His image and likeness. I knew my identity was based on my relationship to Him. I knew with certainty and precision who I was and whose I was. It was the voice of our Pastor that had informed me correctly who I was.

I remember saying with more authority than I’d ever spoken with before, “I’m a Christian Scientist.” They hadn’t anticipated a spiritual answer. She turned to the other children and there was a very puzzled moment. When the girl turned back to me, she simply said, “Well, OK, as long as you’re not a Yankee.” The children had no criticism for an answer that was based on my Christian identity.

This phrase, “I will listen for Thy voice,” brings to thought many ideas and differing meanings. Sometimes a single phrase can be very dense with meaning, such as “The Scriptures inform us….” (475:7). How could we be better informed than to hear the Word of God? Isaiah 58:14 declares it this way, “for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” And we reply, “I will listen for thy voice.” And as Christian Scientists, we are twice blessed, because we also have Science and Health (and of course Mrs. Eddy’s other writings). This book [Science and Health] cannot help leading us to this book [the Bible]. There, the Apostle Paul, in I Corinthians 15:3, puts it this way: “According to the Scriptures.”

We are powerfully blessed by the Comforter. “Christian Science separates error from truth, and breathes through the sacred pages the spiritual sense of life, substance and intelligence” (S&H 548:2). Mrs. Eddy states emphatically, “ ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe;…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.’ This declaration of our Master settles the question; else we are entertaining startling inquires, Are the Scriptures inspired? Are they true? Did Jesus mean what he said? … WE REPLY IN THE AFIRMATIVE that the Scripture is true; … His words are unmistakable, for they form propositions of self-evident, demonstrable truth” (Mis. 192:28-7). In our study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings, we listen for Thy voice on all issues.

In college I had a pivotal recognition. It was a clear example of listening for Thy voice versus anything the material senses could tell us. In Unity of Good, page 8:9-11, “Seedtime and Harvest,” Mary Baker Eddy says, “It is dangerous to rest upon the evidence of the senses for this evidence is not absolute, and therefore not real in our sense of the word.” I was grasping the difference between the spiritual sense of man’s identity and the fact that material sense can’t be trusted to reveal anything real about our true identity. It is in those rare events when it is clear to us that it is at God’s direction, we can follow His commands, and it is our obedience that keeps us safe and rewards everyone involved.

The heart and mind wish to contemplate something higher, holier than the answers matter or material sense can provide. Mrs. Eddy proclaimed, “Christian Science meets a yearning of the human race for spirituality” (S&H 111:24). No human hypotheses nor mortal opinion can truly conquer fear or provide a deep inner peace and wholeness. In her sermon, Christian Healing, Mrs. Eddy writes, “…it is of the utmost importance that we … gain our evidences of Life from the correct source” (16:25-27). And the Christ Truth is always linked to a stunning and profound sense of compassion.

As the senator for my house in college, I was asked to contact a student bluegrass band for a dance. A friend pointed out the man to ask. He and his friend were in the Student Union, dressed in Native American attire, pretending to attack each other. His friend unintentionally cut the man’s finger. I asked his permission to help stop the bleeding. He nodded. I repeated Ezekiel 16:6, “And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou waste in thy blood, Live; yea I said unto thee, when thou waste in thy blood, Live.” The bleeding stopped immediately. He kept looking at his hand, but agreed to provide the music for our function.

On breaks at the dance, he kept asking what I had done to him. I shared with him some ideas about the Bible verse. We spent time discussing Mrs. Eddy and Science and Health.

Weeks later, late in the evening, he demanded I go somewhere with him. I listened and heard an urging from God saying I should go. As I watched, he retrieved a kitchen table full of drugs from many ingenious hiding places within his apartment off campus. He tore open and flushed thousands and thousands of dollars of drugs down the toilet, declaring that he couldn’t sell them any more after I had stopped the bleeding on his hand.

He again demanded to know what I had done to him. A verse from my childhood Bible study came to me — Isaiah 50:4, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary….” I listened because I knew God would know the one thing I needed to say to the man. It came very clearly that I should ask him if he could promise to answer one question honestly. He agreed, and I asked him if he wanted to be free of this activity. He quietly said, “Yes! But there’s no way you could have known that.” I told him that Mrs. Eddy, in her chapter on Prayer, defined prayer as deep and sincere desire. I told him God knows what is on a man’s heart. He obviously had wanted to be free of this immoral activity. He admitted he felt he was being told he had wasted his life when he heard the Ezekiel passage that day in the Student Union. God had put in motion the events and meaning from Ezekiel’s words appropriate for him. Because this man had listened, it would change his life.

When I returned to my dorm that night, all the women asked me if I was the only person on earth who didn’t know he was the biggest drug dealer on campus. I told them that I had never seen him as a drug dealer. Only someone who knew he wasn’t really a drug dealer could help him. I recognized him as a guy I always saw with his dog. No matter where he was – you saw Missy. I saw how tenderly he treated her. I saw the distinguishable gleam of his spiritual individuality. Even if he had completely lost sight of the fact he was a child of God, I couldn’t have helped him if I had lost sight, too. It is good to examine our thought to determine if we’re as astute at discerning the good in a man’s character as we are at criticizing what seems to annoy us.

He moved out of the apartment, found other employment. Two years later, he called me; he had joined a branch church. His fellow brick masons taunted him because he no longer cussed, smoked or drank. He told me Missy had chased a semi at the construction site and gotten hit. The men again taunted him – “If you’re so holy, then heal your dog.” He picked her up and turned to God with all his heart and all his soul. He gave her back to her Creator and prayed. Within a few moments, she jumped up, perfectly healed. He wanted me to know. Later, I thought how he often said Missy had been instrumental in metaphorically “saving his life.” And now, appropriately, it was his finding Christian Science that had saved hers.

The Truth is spiritually discerned.

The Scriptures (Genesis 41:16) point out that God will give you “an answer of peace.” You know the answer has come from divine Mind when you feel that peace and a consciousness of omnipresent Love. “The government of divine love derives its omnipotence by the love it creates in the heart of man; … and satisfies the immortal cravings …” (Miscellany 189:15-16,20). “In no one thing seemed [Jesus] less human and more divine than in his unfaltering faith in the immortality of Truth” (Mis. 163:16-17).

Christian Science is the promised Comforter. “It is a divine utterance” (S&H 127:28-29) which is in accord with I Corinthians 2:4 – “My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power…” Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. In Christian Healing, Mary Baker Eddy states, “The genius of Christianity is works more than words; a calm and steadfast communion with God;” (2:1-3)

God is the All-knowing Mind, and error is a lie. We are wise to defend ourselves against being deceived. It is very important to be firm and clear about what you believe…and what you don’t believe.

In John 11:26, Jesus challenges the people, “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

We can be alert to the subtlety that might make the statements of Science we are familiar with take on the sense of dogma, merely appearing to be like statements in creeds which one mouths in the appropriate situation. The spiritual facts that we sincerely understand are “deep conscientious protests of Truth” (S&H 12:13-14). We must be as pure and adamant about what we believe. “Spiritual sense, contradicting material sense, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality” (S&H 298:15-17).

In 1976 I found I was absolutely terrified by the thought of going into the gas chamber in my Army Chaplain Basic Training. I prayed about what to pray about. I quietly listened and was led to the Bible account of the fiery furnace and Moses’ experiencing a bush that burned but was not consumed. I also studied the textbook’s chapter on Animal Magnetism. I made a commitment to read these once a day for two months. I was so inspired I would sometimes read it three times a day.

I was learning about how one can burn and not be consumed, how lovingly the Hebrew slaves faced the fire, and how Moses was obedient to God. I learned that no challenging thing had to be dreaded. These holy people had seen these threats as joyous opportunities to experience God’s presence with them.

It wasn’t until I was walking into the gas chamber that I remembered why I had begun the study. The whole idea of the exercise is to learn confidence that the mask will protect you, if you keep it on. – Therefore, they make you take it off in the gas! I was joyous that I’d done my prayer and had no sense of fear. I listened for Thy voice, and this phrase came to me – “Mind-science is wholly separate from any half-way impertinent knowledge” (S&H 103:12-13). I knew God governed the universe as divine Love and He never had ordained a law to harm or inflict His children. I felt God’s presence and knew I couldn’t be separated from Him. I felt like I was looking down on the experience, wholly separate from any human sense of being in the chamber.

We removed our masks. Because the gas was so thick, even the prior service guys were choking and literally in a pile attempting to get out the door. I stood still and calmly. Once the instructors were able to get the door open, thy got the men out. A Major walked back into the chamber and stared at me just standing quietly — unmasked. I was reveling in gratitude that I had no reaction to the tear gas. Finally, he said through his mask, “Humor me and go outside.” He went out, unmasked, and asked, “Are you a Christian Scientist?” I said, “Yes!” Then he said, “You were in there praying, weren’t you.” In complete joy I replied, “Yes!” He remarked that he’d never had a single class when not one person got ill. I was even more grateful for that. The statement from the textbook that I had heeded was a pure statement of Truth that applied to the entire situation, not just to me. It benefited everyone else and kept them from the sickness that commonly plagued such exercises.

It wasn’t until nearly twenty years later that a woman reminded me that the actual title of the chapter is Animal Magnetism UNMASKED.

Unbelief

From that point on I became more alert to dividing between what I should deny and cast out of thought and what was fact. Mrs. Eddy puts it very succinctly, “Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal” (S&H 505:20-22). My Sunday School teacher in Iowa shared an experience I’ll never forget. It illustrates there are times for UNBELIEF.

A young Christian Science girl in middle school was forced to take a physical science course and was punished because she wouldn’t agree with the teachings. Her teacher was so put off by her denials of the health curriculum that she ordered her to write on the blackboard statements about the heart and blood sustaining life. She was appropriately obedient to her teacher, who then told her she could leave. However, the teacher looked more closely and realized the child had held her ground absolutely and added in small letters underneath the statements, “But I don’t believe it!”

Later the teacher experienced a severe claim of heart attack and was given a dire prognosis. She remembered the girl’s stand for the truth and she summoned the girl’s family to the hospital. She turned to a Christian Science practitioner and was completely healed.

We must learn to question what must be questioned. And know what is unquestionably true by demonstration. The time for healing is for all time.

The Bible didn’t just record the healings done by Jesus and his disciples but also the healing work of Paul, Lydia, and other apostles. “Organization and time have nothing to do with Life” (S&H 249:9), nor do they restrain or outline healing possibility or season. We should carefully listen in each situation, listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit to clearly direct us as to the appropriate actions in healing and sharing Christian Science.

In Retrospection and Introspection 9:23, Mrs. Eddy quoted from a poem by Mrs. Hemans, “Shall I not rejoice That I have learned at last to know His voice From man’s?” What is required of us? “…requisite proofs or [our] own piety” (S&H 25:24).

And Mrs. Eddy tells us, “To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation to the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science” (Miscellany 160:5).

Thank you for investigating these few precepts and for joining in our efforts to understand what our Leader lived to establish in this “unspeakable gift” of Christian Science.