A reliable witness
Melanie Wahlberg | from The Christian Science Journal
Committing oneself to witness God’s perfect design is a substantial action step toward healing.
It’s natural to want prayer to be effective. Whether you’re praying for someone else or for yourself, when you sit down to pray you’re hoping for healing. But at some point, any anxious hope for change must give way to inspired thoughts that honor God—to a feeling of trust that He’s revealing the perfect order of His creation, as described in the first chapter of the Bible: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).
But when intense desire for change—for evidence of healing—is distracting me from inspiration, I have to step back and ask myself, What is my role when I’m praying?
A deep desire to understand this role can make prayer more powerful and makes healing through prayer more natural, more possible. The Bible provides substantial insight and counsel regarding the would-be healer’s role. At first glance, though, there appears to be a dichotomy.
On one hand, the Bible clearly indicates that God is “Doer.” He not only creates, but He maintains this creation. In the Old Testament, Job declares, “[God] is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him” (Job 23:13, 14). So in this sense, it seems that not much is left for us to do when we’re praying for healing.
Our part must involve witnessing what already is.
On the other hand, when one is facing a challenge—physical, financial, relationship, etc.—it’s natural to want to be “part of the solution.” Christ Jesus, the ultimate model for healers, gave his followers these imperatives: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils” (Matt. 10:8). Jesus further declared, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). But if the healer’s role isn’t to make good things happen—because God is the actual doer and healer—then our part must involve witnessing what already is. It’s to realize wholeheartedly and consistently God’s power and presence now and to understand more clearly that all of His creation is already spiritual and perfect.
Early in my healing practice, I got a vivid lesson on the power of witnessing what already is. One afternoon, I received two calls asking for prayer. The first came from a woman who had scratched the surface of her eye and was in pain. She was concerned about her vision. The second call came from a man who was suffering from flu symptoms including nausea. I agreed to give Christian Science treatment to each and decided to drive to a nearby park and listen for inspiration.
I parked the car, settled myself, and got quiet and peaceful—so peaceful that I actually dozed off! I awoke several minutes later with a start. How could I fall asleep when I’d just assured others I would be praying for them? As I sat there feeling increasingly guilty, I realized that it was essential to forget about myself and my efforts and turn thought fully to God. Right there, I focused mentally on what I was hearing from God, knowing that would bring comfort and relief. Inspiration began to flow, and I felt a warm sense of God’s ever-presence and care.
Then a thought came, clearly from God: “Don’t you know these are My children? They’re perfect now and they always have been, because I made them that way.” The glow of reassurance inside my car was a tangible presence. I stayed there for a few more minutes, affirming and cherishing the message I’d received. Then I drove home. Soon both individuals called to say they’d been quickly healed.
That precious time in the car required me to abandon a personal sense of responsibility, and I’ve found that to be a powerful aspect of giving treatment. Healing spiritually is more about discerning what God has already done than about trying to make something happen. But, there’s a vast difference between “letting go” of personal responsibility for healing and “doing nothing.” The former is basic to Christian healing and the latter is foreign to it.
There’s real joy in letting go of the mistaken belief that the one praying is in charge.
Committing oneself to witness God’s perfect design is a substantial, demanding action step toward healing. It provides the space for God to reveal His perfect way, His perfect design. The temptation to feel personally responsible can sneak in when one has agreed to pray for another. Recommitting—or even simply remembering—to witness God’s already intact creation relieves the healer of doubt or burden. Although this approach takes alertness and discipline, there’s real joy in letting go of the mistaken belief that the one praying is in charge. It frees the healer from either trying aggressively to “fix” things or passively hoping they’ll somehow work out. It makes one more receptive to those pure, divine ideas that awaken both healer and patient to spiritual reality.
Of course, the work of witnessing isn’t always accomplished in a moment. To take a stand for God’s active presence and goodness when someone is troubled by a bodily, family, workplace, or economic difficulty requires an increasingly deeper trust in God’s reassuring Word. But the imperfect and changeable material sense of existence offers no help, while the spiritual sense of things reveals God’s truth in any situation. As Mary Baker Eddy explained, “What is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth” (Science and Health, p. 298).
Bearing witness to God’s creation means focusing exclusively on messages from God.
To me, bearing witness to God’s creation means focusing exclusively on messages from God, rather than on what an inevitably mistaken material sense says about life. It requires denying evil any reality as much it does affirming the substantiality of good—mentally rejoicing in the evidence of God and His spiritual creation and denying the possibility of disease or limitation existing within this creation.
This activity of witnessing God’s power at work makes all the difference in how I respond to the demands of the day. If I’ve already established through prayer that God is Love and therefore that, by design, the man and woman He made is loving and tender, then I won’t believe the physical senses when they report otherwise. Sure, there will be incongruity between what spiritual sense and the material senses are saying, but I’ve already committed to spiritual sense as the only source of valid information.
This ongoing demand of witnessing—of aligning ourselves with God’s goodness and power—nurtures trust in His power. That’s what gives confidence in prayer’s effectiveness. As the healer’s trust grows into absolute assurance of God’s supremacy, we’ll experience more of Mind’s blessings, lighting the path of reliance on God’s healing power.
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