When you pray for healing, expect to be well.
Expectations are important when seeking out spiritual healing. They often lead us in the direction they point out.
For example, if one expects a health problem to persist, they may keep checking the body to see if the problem is gone yet, or seek out a medical exam to get a doctor’s opinion. Underneath their prayers, is a lingering doubt that the truth they know is producing a healing effect, so they feel impelled to “check and see” whether their prayers are working. There is an expectation of continued suffering creating doubt in their mind.
We are always expecting something to happen. It could be something good, something bad or nothing at all. But we do have expectations and they affect our outlook and progress toward healing. So, be sure to expect what you wish to demonstrate and prove.
Put your expectations in Truth!
There is nothing uncertain about God’s absolute government over all of His creation. To understand yourself as spiritual and as reflecting God’s government is to take your experience out of the realm of the temporal and uncertain into the realm of reality where God’s harmonious government is tangibly felt and expressed. Where it’s natural and normal to be well.
Expectations based on spiritual reality rather than on material evidence provide a sound foundation on which to stand and demonstrate spiritual truth.
It’s your divine right to be well. That’s the way God designed you to be! So, expect to be well when you pray. And feel no need to accept anything less.
“My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him” Psalm 62:5, NKJV.
Thank you Evan! Recently it occurred to me to think more deeply about what has “power”. If I think of myself as material and living in a material universe, then I have to do something physical to generate power (take a drug to generate a chemical reaction, have surgery to remove or readjust something, etc.). But when I understand I am completely spiritual the paradigm changes. On page 428 of Science and Health is this statement:
We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.
I think it is also important to consider what constitutes a healing. Mrs. Eddy explains that on page xi of Science and Health:
The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation.
So healing occurs when the problem “loses reality” in our consciousness. Therefore, healing is an awakening process…replacing a belief in an incorrect view of existence with what is true about God and God’s creation.
If healing results from awakening to what is true, then anything that helps us to awaken is what really has power or “mental might”. Denying what is not true and affirming what is true (i.e. prayer) is therefore power. Expecting and understanding that prayer does heal (awaken us to see God’s reality right where some problem seems to exist) is power. Being grateful and joyful in the knowledge that God, Love, creates and maintains laws that keep everything in perpetual harmony is power!
Beautifully expressed Brian, Thank you
Thank you Evan for your article and Brian for your comments. The only thing I can add is that my mother used to say, “Keep good thoughts.”
What a lovely inspiration…So good Evan. Spiritual discipline is so essential to be at par with God’s perfection. We daily study the Truths, but when the time comes to put those Truths into practise we fall short of spiritual discipline, we often panic and don’t stand porter at the door of thought, we are not vigilant enough to shut the door at once on error. I do not recollect the exact words, but Mrs. Eddy mentions in her writings, to keep our thoughts so filled with Truth that error has no room to enter. If we do so, then we will not have trouble trying to shove error out.
Recently I had an allergy on my feet. Though I was working with the “Truths”, I kept looking for an improvement, instead of looking away from it. I did fall short of the spiritual discipline and disobeyed what Mrs. Eddy says. viz. “Look away from the body into Truth and Love.” I did take the help of my good friends, who so lovingly supported me with their prayers. Their prayers were a pillar of strength and the healing was quick when I refused to look at error and saw only Gods perfection everywhere, in everyone including myself.
Thank you so very much Evan for everything.
Expectation for success is the first step in demonstration of faith that furthers belief into the actual reality of experience without which leaves all to the randomness of chance. Only one is real the other by definition must be unreal. Mary Baker Eddy understood this succinctly helping us all apply the principles of divine science universally to our individual experience bringing home the need of the many to the harmony and perfection of the one Mind.
I go back and forth; checking if the disease is gone because it is painful but then I focus on the truth. But yes, the awakening is what really happens not the healing of a material disease.
Thanks, Evan, and all the Commenters! Great Topic and Discussion. I think Mrs. Eddy does say somewhere…..”Expectation speeds our progress….” The more I study C.S. the more I see that it demands such a discipline of thought!! Not many other religions or philosophies demand this kind of discipline and study and dedication! In other words….it takes time, effort and consecration to be a practicing Christian Scientist….and a lot of us today have become so engrossed in this material world with its politics, its technology and fast-pace living, that we really don’t put as much into the study and practice of C.S. that it demands…..and yet we “expect” instantaneous healings…..because we want everything right now and think we deserve not to suffer! I’m coming to see that C.S. is a Spiritual Path, not just an easy path to well-being in a material body. It is so much More! It’s about Salvation – growing out of material beliefs or the carnal mind and finding our Being in God! It takes Work!
This is a very timely reminder for me. Thank you Evan.
A family member is having surgery today (she is not a Christian Scientist). I’ve been trying to keep my thought of her in the spiritual over the past few weeks. To not be in sympathy with the problem, but with compassion for her. To know her true being in my own thought, her wholeness and purity. I am not praying specifically for her, but I can still expect good as the outcome.
When my thought is clear, then I can be of better help to her if she were to need it in any way.
I am grateful for the comments too, especially Brian’s reminder quoting Mrs Eddy –the fact that the divine Principle–Love– is ALWAYS in operation, all good. All encompassing. For everyone.
I, too, am grateful for all of the comments – especial Brian’s thoughtful remarks. I am reminded that Jesus ALWAYS expressed gratitude before healing or raising the dead – think of Lazarus. This is something I’m striving to put into practice.
Several friends and family have need for prayers lately. My thoughts have been to put them in God’s pocket. It removes the actual problem and keeps me focussed on knowing God’s goodness, protection and presence are what is really transporting. I hold to that Truth. God is in control.
Evan, Brian and Nergish a big hug for this wonderful exchange of Truths – so needed today.
This is a keeper.