Experiencing God's Blessings


"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings."  This is the opening sentence of the preface of the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  My reading and study of this book has helped me to learn about the "sustaining infinite" (i.e. God), learn how to lean on this benevolent ever-presence, and experience blessings.  The specifics of all this are too much to include in this blog post (read the book!), but the descriptive phrase "sustaining infinite" is an introduction to what the book teaches us about God - we are loved, guided, and sustained by this divine power.

The next sentence in the book provides a useful starting point into recognizing these blessings.  It reads: "The wakeful shepherd beholds the first faint morning beams, ere cometh the full radiance of a risen day."  This refers to the shepherds, awake and watchful in the night, which heard and obeyed the angel voices directing them to the manger in Bethlehem to witness the birth of Jesus.  So we learn that quiet and alert watchfulness are some of the necessary qualities for experiencing God's blessings. Reading this book has helped me cultivate this watchful alertness for divine direction.

A small experience I recently had illustrates this.  I wanted to scan some 35mm slides using my computer, but to do this I needed a special attachment to hold the slides in the proper position on the scanner.  Although I owned this attachment, I hadn't seen it for several years and during this period I had moved three times!  I did not have any idea where to look for this item.  Then the idea occurred to me to look in a storage closet downstairs.  I did, but there was only one box of mine in the closet and it was labeled "Sunday School stuff".  I was disappointed, but since I had joined a new church and I was working in the Sunday School, I decided to look at my "Sunday School stuff" to see if there was anything I might need.  I opened the box and right on top was the scanner attachment that I was looking for.  The attachment had nothing to do with Sunday School and I do not know why it was in this box, but I know where the blessing of finding the part I needed came from!

You can read Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures online or purchase it from Amazon or any major book retailer.  It is also available for sale or study at the Christian Science Reading Room in Evergreen, Colorado at 4602 Plettner Lane.