One God and Father of All Does the Healing

I've been thinking about the experience I had earlier this month changing a light bulb (see "Know the Truth and the Truth Will Make You Free"). The point I've been marveling at is that when I prayed for God to show me how to change the light bulb, God didn't respond by telling me how to do it, leaving me to complete the task on my own. Instead, God took me and changed the light bulb! It was a joint activity, but God was firmly in control.

I think that says something important about who we are, our relationship to God, and what the goal of prayer should be. We aren't separated from God, praying to get His attention. God doesn't respond to our prayers by handing us something to use to go off and fix our problems ourselves. We are one with God and God does His will through us, expresses Himself as us.

As the apostle Paul said in his letter to the Ephesians, "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all." We tend to forget our unity with God and like the prodigal son in Jesus's parable, we go off and try to do things on our own. I once heard Keith Womack, a Christian Science Practitioner, explain this relationship this way: "God is the doer, Christ is the doing, man is the done". The purpose of prayer is to bring ourselves back into consciousness of our unity with our divine Father so that He can act through us.

I had a chance to put this idea of God being the doer into practice this week. I was lifting a canoe and strained my back. As a result, it was uncomfortable for me to do pretty much anything but sit still. If I moved the wrong way my body froze with pain. I prayed, as I had with the light bulb changing incident mentioned earlier, by getting my thought focused on the truth about God and my identity as His creation. It was clear to me that God didn't create or cause strained muscles or painful conditions. God created me to express strength and comfort. I was really a spiritual being, not at the mercy of a material body or "laws" of human physiology. I was convinced of this truth.

I struggled to put these truths into practice, but I didn't seem to have any success. The physical evidence of an injured muscle persisted and it seemed that it would be awhile before it got well. The next day, my condition was unchanged. Then, I remembered the light bulb lesson. Did I need to struggle to heal myself or did I just need stand firmly on the truth, but let God do the healing? I handed the responsibility to God. "It's in your hands. You are the healer.", I said - and I meant it.

I went about working at my desk on my tasks for the day. About an hour later, I needed to get up to get something. I began to rise gingerly and realized that I could move without pain! There was just a slight soreness in my back and even this soreness was gone in a few hours. I love this experience! It is a wonderful lesson that God is with us and cares for us. Our responsibility is to know God and what God is doing. God is the healer!