Forward to school

David Stevens | from the Christian Science Sentinel

Each of us—student, parent, or teacher—has what’s needed to “grow forward” this school year.

Throughout the world, students from primary to university level have headed back to school. There’s excitement, an inherent expectancy of new horizons for positive achievement. But some students’ expectations might be mixed with fear and doubt. Parents can feel the same way. So can teachers. I speak from experience in all three categories.

Hearts are pounding a little faster on the first day of classes, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that we can do better than mixing fear of failure, anxiety about relationships, and concerns about resources and safety with those good expectations.

The key to dropping the negatives and maximizing the potential for good is stepping back to see where God is. Well, where was God—the divine Truth of all things—during summer vacation? Where was God’s love, or His intelligence? None of us can make it through any season without the wisdom and good judgment that God gives. When you think about it, ever since school let out, we’ve all continued to utilize our ability to tell the difference between what is true and what is not. We’ve had to exercise creativity, kindness, and joy. These are all attributes of God. They belong to each one of us by reflection and are continuous and progressive. They propel us forward, getting stronger as we use them. So, from this perspective, it’s not really about going “back to school”; it’s about going forward to school.

Progress is God’s law.

I remember learning some of this when I had to change schools in sixth grade. I really didn’t want to do it, but my parents felt I had an opportunity to go to a better school. I talked about the change with my mom, who helped me pray about it. She reminded me of something I’d learned—that progress is God’s law, so everything I needed to have to make progress would be there. I kept thinking about the Bible stories I’d studied in Christian Science Sunday School, like David’s victory over Goliath, and Daniel in the lions’ den. They encouraged me to go forward, trusting that God was supplying the good I needed in making friends and in making adjustments academically.

One thing I had to do was to catch up in math, which meant taking fifth and sixth grade math classes at the same time. At first it was embarrassing to me. I didn’t know if I could do it. Mom pointed out that God’s law of progress “demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 233). As I accepted that idea, I began to have some success in math, gained confidence, and soon felt like David running to meet my own Goliath with an expectancy of winning.

Toward the end of that year, we took aptitude tests, and my math aptitude score was one of the highest in the school. Who knew? Aptitude means “readiness of learning” and “quickness of apprehension.” Looking back, I’m convinced that my aptitude was directly connected to my attitude, which was increasingly determined by trusting that God was there with me and powerful right where I needed it. Attitude is a mental posture or position. So my newly discovered willingness, trust, and joy positioned me to glimpse the fact that I reflected the limitless intelligence of divine Mind.

Every child of God is endowed with His promise of accomplishment and success.

If I had had to face all that newness and extra work alone, I might have been overwhelmed. But I knew I wasn’t alone. In truth, none of us ever is alone. We all reflect the one infinite Mind. The Apostle Paul says: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12, 13). God, “the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all wise, all-loving” (Science and Health, p. 587), is working with and in us to bring out a holy and good purpose. Every child of God is endowed with His promise of accomplishment and success.

Another aspect of going forward and not back involves letting go of past negatives. There’s no need to take any of last year’s fears, grudges, or labels with you this year. That would be more of a burden than stuffing last year’s books and notebooks into your backpack along with this year’s. Divine Love identifies you with good and with God’s good purpose, and gives you fresh ideas, fresh views of your God-given opportunity and worth. “Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness” (Science and Health, p. 246). We keep on growing and have all the resources necessary to do so.

As a parent, I’ve found it important to be willing to consent to this great fact that every child has all that he or she needs to “grow forward.” It’s a tremendous help to remember who my son and daughter are—God’s own children, whose inheritance of good is limitless and incontestable. God has given each child not just some but all the qualities of His nature to express. Science and Health puts it this way: “God expresses in man the infinite idea, forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis” (Science and Health, p. 258).

There are no limits to the good that can be accomplished.

This isn’t just a pleasant thought; it’s the accurate view of what’s going on, unfolding in each person, each student. Since we develop “from a boundless basis,” there are no limits to the good that can be accomplished. The parent’s most important job is to hold up in thought, communication, and action, the unlimited promise of good in a child, understanding that this is God’s own child, inseparable from the infinite source.

No doubt that’s what my parents were striving to do in their prayers for me when I went off to college. I had a rocky start and almost dropped out. I’d been ill over the summer. Before reporting to football camp, I’d lost almost 30 pounds, and went into the football season frustrated and discouraged. This, coupled with the usual challenges of the transition from high school to college, made me wish I could do the year over.

At Christmas break, I announced that I wanted to transfer. My parents challenged me to pray about it. I thought I’d been praying, by essentially wishing for a better outcome. But I’d learned that effective prayer involved willingness to see in God’s way, rather than convincing God of my plan. As I recognized my parents’ loving motives, and gained a willingness to trust that God was orchestrating my life, I felt willing to go back to college in January and try again. I still had issues to resolve everywhere I looked—in classes, relationships, and athletics—and I still hadn’t regained weight.

I felt all that angst about my whole college experience begin to disappear.

My breakthrough came when someone with whom I’d had several confrontations stopped by my room to tell me something. I’d been praying that day, and my prayer turned me to thinking of how I could be and do good, rather than of what I thought others should be. So I found myself telling him about the good qualities I wanted to express, and my desire to be a brother to others in the process. At first he seemed as surprised as I was to see the conversation go in this direction. But then he responded in kind, and I felt all that angst about my whole college experience begin to disappear.

I was happy to trust God’s active love for me to fill in what I couldn’t yet see for my immediate future. And the following weeks were filled with sunbursts of promise and progress. I made friends in the dorm, where I hadn’t before. I got into classes for spring quarter in my major, and achieved my first decent grades. And I regained all the weight I’d lost the previous summer. I was free to go forward with my college career.

The changes resulted from a shift in my mental outlook. I stopped assuming that the determining factors were either beyond my control or a matter of my own will and wits. Yielding to God’s will through prayer enabled me to find myself in the middle of opportunity rather than unhappy circumstance.

God’s love and intelligence are already active in every situation we enter.

There’s a promise of good for everyone beginning a new school year. God’s love and intelligence are already active in every situation we enter. Each one’s role is already established in the divine continuum of good. When Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32), he meant right here, right now. That kingdom is where you are. The Christ, which can be thought of as God’s ongoing message of our oneness with all good, reveals God’s resources to be right at hand. It’s the Christ that reveals the Father’s plan of educare—the Latin verb at the base of education—which means “to lead out from.” God’s plan is to lead each one out from limitation to limitlessness—and forward, to a fitness for doing and being good, as an individual expression of the divine Principle of all good.

Our part is to go forward expectant of learning more of the divine Science and Christian art of our being. It’s a journey not to be missed, as Science and Health reveals: “The human mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity” (Science and Health, p. 128).

Whatever your school year looks like at this point, you can enter it, conscious that you qualify for divine Love’s kind of scholarship—the limitless resources that are always available to complete any good purpose.

David Stevens is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher living in Petaluma, California. He’s also a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.