When you pray to God, who is doing most of the talking? You or God?
For the best results in prayer, it’s helpful when God is doing most of the talking and we are doing the listening, for God has the answer we seek!
Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Lips must be mute and materialism silent, that man may have audience with Spirit, the divine Principle, Love, which destroys all error” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 15).
Listen more. Talk less. You’ll hear the answer you seek quicker!
My Top 10 citations from this week’s Sept. 7 Bible Lesson on Man (Part 2)
6. S&H 495:20 …Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.
7. Gen. 1: 1, 32 … In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good.
8. S&H 475: 10-12 … Man is spiritual and perfect, and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science.
9. S&H 286: 12-14 … Physical causation was put aside from first to last by this original man, Jesus. He knew that the divine Principle, Love, creates and governs all that is real.
10. Rom. 8: 38,39 … For I as persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nore angles, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thanks Mark! I really enjoy these powerful statements of Truth. ❣️
I’m with Patty! Thank you Mark for these powerful spiritual nuggets of pure Truth & Love! It’s also a wonderful sample of what a portion of the weekly Bible lesson looks like for those that are new to Christian Science, 🙂
Exactly J and Patty !Plus it brings points to the attention which we may gloss over on occasion. Keep up the good work Mark/Il…B.x
Thanks Mark. The other day there was a question asking if your ‘Top 10 citations’ related to the topic of the day. Quotes from the lesson are gems of universal spiritual truth, and if we look closely we’ll likely see a connection. For example, your first citation above says that the understanding of Being will “silence discord with harmony.” As Evan said today, when we silence the seeming discord in our thought and just listen to God, we will hear and see the present Harmony.
“Prayer is in the listening” By Kate Mullane Robertson. From the October 14, 2022 issue of The Christian Science Monitor:
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2022/1014/Prayer-is-in-the-listening/?src=shared
Thank you J. ❣️
Great thoughts expressed here, as listened to by God’s Love and
direction. The pure listening that the child in the article heard,
Thank you, J , silenced the material senses so that the truth of
the situation was revealed. I love where in the article, it says,
this listening is “not of the head, but of the heart”. How True.
When we listen with our whole heart, God speaks to us in ways
that are not material, but spiritual.
This is a quite beautiful article, thank you J. B.x
A leaflet printed by the Christian Science
Publishing Society and reprinted from the Christian Science Monitor entitled ”
Self-control and Grace” is a perfect addition to this topic.
In the article our Leader mentions in Retrospectio and Introspection, pg. 79,
” Be temperate in thought, word, and deed. Meekness and temperance are the jewels of Love, set in wisdom. Restrain
untempered zeal.”
Here is the link:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/1mno7xpjbua?s=copylink
Thank you, Grace, and Maggie
I am looking forward to embracing these characteristics :
“Capacity to terminate”—to recognize the very moment at which to stop some activity and actually to stop—reveals self-control and expresses a vital aspect of grace. The necessity for terminating some wrong activity is obvious. Not so readily apparent is the need for temperance and judicious timing of legitimate action.
“Gracious dominion is gained step by step as one seeks God’s guidance not only for the right start but for the correct ending of an activity.”
I do need to listen more and talk less, when communing with God and well as when I interact with people. I notice that when I feel quieter inside it’s easy for me to just be present with people and really hear them and learn from them. And when I feel agitated or not quiet inside I seem more eager to say my piece and talk about myself and even talk over people. Some of this is just trying to find common ground with others and say how my experience is similar to what they have been talking about, but I see there is still too much zealousness to get to the “me” part. As I see this more clearly I can try to stop and pray and breathe for a moment and let God quiet me so I can be a better listener. There is so much to learn from God and from those He puts before us.
Thank you Rose. Excellent, and helpful insights and thoughts reading your comments today.
Thank you kindly J, and I appreciatethe time and love you put into sharing many wonderful resources with us. Also agree with your reply to Mark above that his sharing of quotes from the weekly Bible Lesson gives a little taste of the lesson to those who may not be familiar with it.
Thank you!