A much larger sense of God
/Question 3: Share a transforming experience like Saul to Paul which came about reading Skip’s article(s).
A major transition in my life came from hearing, relistening to, and absorbing the message of the Sentinel radio program, “Why believe in God?” (Sentinel Radio Edition, Program 807, February 16, 2008). In this program, Skip declares, “the larger your sense of God, the smaller the sense of your problem.” While this program played an important role in the healing of a 30-year problem, the whole idea of what we fill thought with, and that God needs to be more of it, was new to me.
I first heard this program around 2014, soon after JSH-online became a resource. At the time, I had been experiencing the symptoms of an ear infection since eighth grade. The problem was rarely painful, but would drain almost every day. I had worked with practitioners, especially as a teenager, but much of this was my effort to out-source the healing work to the practitioner so that my day-to-day life in matter would go more smoothly. My search for healing was sincere, in that I really wanted to be rid of the symptoms, but I wasn’t looking for transformation.
Over the years, I started thinking that Gideon’s approach of making a deal with God was a thoughtful approach: Dear God, it’s me. I’ve seen cool healings in my family before, so I know that Christian healing is possible. If I could be healed of this situation, I promise I’d believe in you forever.
As a young man, I began to look for skeletons in my thinking: Christian Science teaches that it’s what’s in our thinking that makes us sick, so what exactly is it that is making me sick? Is it a bad thought I had? Do I need to think better about someone in particular? Then for a number of years I thought that ignoring the problem was quasi-consistent with Science, in that you’re not “looking deeply into matter.”
There had been slow growth in my understanding of Christian Science, but what transformed my understanding was the new-old idea that God is All. What resonated with me was Skip’s statement in that radio program, “the larger your sense of God, the smaller the sense of your problem.”
Of course, it was not just the words that changed me. It was thinking about the boundless depth of that message. While one could scream from the rooftops that God is All – literally EVERYTHING—it’s not loud words that impart the allness of Spirit. I saw that Science wasn’t relying on a tough-upper-lip or hard-work-pays-off mentality. It was so much more than being able to repeat the First Commandment, more than rehearsing the words of a prayer at night.
Soon thereafter, the infection of the ear dried up. But the full healing required going deeper, unseeing all of the rather ridiculous assumptions in my early years, and knowing that God’s allness isn’t something you can refer to in rattled-off definitions. It is something to be seen in every corner of each day—how we view the world, politics, branch church membership, finances, how we invest our time, and so much more. If it’s worth thinking about, it pertains to God.
Today with every challenge I face, I notice the underlying argument that God is somehow less than all. But as we have been taught, God is, in-fact, All. That truth applies to the smallest argument, such as, “I feel tired this morning,” up to the largest, such as, “There doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about global warming.” What we have been given as Christian Scientists is the unshakable certainty of God’s goodness and allness. And it is a Saul to Paul concept whenever and wherever we receive it.