Look forward, not backward

January 3, 2017 | 24 comments

“You have only good to look forward to in your life,” I told a woman bothered by painful memories from her past. Her life was running well in the present, but hard experiences from decades ago still haunted her thought and caused dismay.

One of the freeing truths of Christian Science is that we are not our human experience. We are spiritual children of God who have eternal life in God to claim and live. This life is forever untainted and untouched by anything that happens materially.

The mortal experience sure seems real to the mortal dreaming it, but Christ came to wake mortals from that dream to find their true life at-one with God in Spirit. Through Christ and spiritual growth, we find life in Spirit, and the mortal sense of things fades, dies away and totally disappears. It is as nothing.

And there is no better time to make progress in the direction of Life in Spirit than now.

To make progress forward though, we have to cease looking backward.

When you drive down the highway, you can’t hold your gaze in the rearview mirror and stay on the road. You have to trust that what is behind you is behind you, and the need of the moment is to look forward and drive to a progressive destination!

You are not your mortal past. You are your spiritual present. Focus on who you are. Focus on the truth of your being.

Don’t let mortal mind define you. Discover what God has in Mind for you. It’s all good, and it’s all yours. Go for it. Look forward, never backward. Thrive, and live!

“I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us” Philippians 3:14, NLT.

“I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back” Philippians 3:14, The Message.

24 thoughts on “Look forward, not backward”

  1. Perfect. I’m trying to decide if I should retire or not and this…………………. is very helpful. thank you.

    1. Thank you. Just before waking this morning, my dream was so disruptive that I woke up trying to figure out what took place in it, why pieces of it were from repetitive dreams, what was real and what wasn’t – and I felt exhausted from this mental exercise until I let it go. the human life we wrestle with is no different is it?! What a timely blog….

  2. Thanks, Evan! What a perfect topic for a Brand New Year! Somewhere, I got this little phrase…..”Continue the Healing Process of being Human……” So, yes, while on the Absolute level the Mortal Sense of things has no real Reality……I believe our Human Experience is very valuable and holds a lot of Healing Lessons for us. I don’t believe in just throwing out our whole Human Experience as “Unreal”. I think Mrs. Eddy says something like…”The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus.” I believe we are here as Humans to make manifest the Divinity of the Christ! Much Love to All!

    1. Bevi, you ‘n I agree:

      Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater!

      “Emerge gently into Spirit…” * Lovingly, carefully, wisely, kindly,
      sweetly, tenderly, understandingly….and “straight on til Morning!”

      *Mary Baker Eddy

      :<))

  3. Love today’s message (as I do most of them ). And Bevi your comments are so right on !

    Thanks to all the commenters who have responded over the years to these wonderful

    daily inspirations from Evan. Happy New Year to all!

  4. Yes things of the past have a way of working into the present. I love the driving reference. It is so right on and will be useful to wake up from those suggestions when they try to get in the way. Drive forward along a clear and happy road. Yes!
    Thanks again Evan and everyone.

  5. Thank you Evan! Written from snowy Western Canada!
    I appreciate your daily blogs –
    always some spiritual ideas
    to take and work with!
    And drive FORWARD.

    🙂

  6. Thank you, Evan. Perfect Principle knows not anything other than itself and its perfect reflections; and, therefor requires neither adjustment nor reconciliation. Only the mortal, or material sense needs to “add” or “take away” (subtract) to adjust earthly thought to heaven, harmony. Fixing the flat tire will presently allow us to travel forward.

  7. Thank you Evan.!

    The discussion today made me look up the definition of “human” and also to search the writings of Mary Baker Eddy for her use of that word. In the 1828 Websters dictionary “human” is defined in part as “Belonging to man or mankind; pertaining or relating to the race of man”. “Man” is defined in this same dictionary as “Mankind; the human race; the whole species of human beings; beings distinguished from all other animals by the powers of reason and speech”.

    From my search it appears that Mrs. Eddy uses the word “human” to mean a state of consciousness that includes both material and divine characteristics (i.e. most people believe God created material persons with spiritual souls). Therefore the “human” includes both the true idea of “man” as created by God, but also includes the belief that matter makes up this man, or this man is living in a material world. That matches the Webster definition which you could say defines “human” as consisting of both spiritual and animal characteristics (i.e. the true idea of “man” in an “animal” species).

    Jesus taught that “like produces like”. So for a human, if by that you mean a combination of spiritual and material, to exist, God would have to be partially material since God created man like Himself. Therefore, in that sense, I can’t believe in the reality of human existence and therefore human history. But I believe the spiritual element of humanity is real and therefore my “human history” consists of spiritual ideas and experiences that reflect God.

    Here’s an article I found that I also found helpful for this topic…

    http://journal.christianscience.com/shared/view/snihisda5a?s=e

    1. Hi Brian,

      Yes, you are correct in your explanation that the human can be defined as a mixture of good and bad. It’s like the wheat and tares parable Jesus shared. The tares and wheat grow side by side until the tares can be singled out and pulled out. The field is the human consciousness, in that parable.

      In my blog above, I had no intention of getting into the particulars of defining the word human. I was talking about not letting human experiences define us. My intent was to point out that we are not the product of our human experiences. We are more. We come from God and can overcome any sense of limitation in the human experience. The divine is greater than the human, and is the goal to drive toward.

      Thanks for sharing!

      1. Hi Evan…I didn’t mean to imply you were intending to define the word “human”, so please accept my apologies if that’s the way my comment came across. It’s just that this blog causes me to “think” deeply about different subjects. I had periodically in the past intended to do a study of the word “human”, so this blog today was just the trigger to get me to do that and I thought I would share what I found. Thanks again for this blog…which is so darn thought provoking! 🙂 I love it!

  8. Thanks, Brian! That’s a Wonderful Article you gave the link to! Problem is……I’m just not there….yet……still working out the Human and finding it valuable to do so. C.S. can be very tricky if one tries to abide by it without having the full understanding of it. What it can tend to do is to be used as a Human Denial or Spiritual Bypass, as a way to just “pretend” things didn’t happen when they did. C.S. leaves out a lot of the Human Feeling which is important on our developmental path. It’s just so important to let ourselves be fully Human first, before we start on the metaphysical path. I know Mrs. Eddy went thru a lot of Human stuff in her life and learned a lot, BEFORE she was ready to learn and live the metaphysical. Just some Food for Thought!

    1. Oops! Not sure I agree with you on what you just wrote, Bevi, though I understand what you are saying. I believe are all on individual paths of unfolding Good; God knows our human needs, and meets our needs…where we are in thought and life. This is, after all, divine Love’s work! To understand the “human and divine coincidence” is a huge thing, and demanding, and…exciting and wonderful!! Concord is so helpful for this study!.
      (Thank You for JSH-online, God!)

      :<))

    2. Hi Bevi,

      I think you’re making some characterizations about CS that aren’t true. I understand that different people have different interpretations of what CS teaches, and that happens commonly, but I find it helpful to remember that never changes the actual teaching.

      CS loves the human. CS is all about loving the human and bringing healing to the human experience. Heal the sick is a specific command of Jesus, which is obviously directed to the human, for the human is the one who needs healing.

      The human denial you mention is not what CS teaches. CS teaches one to squarely and specifically face any evil and undo it with spiritual truth. If one is choosing to ignore an evil that needs to be faced, that is not CS. That is their practice. Just wanted to be clear on this so readers don’t get confused.

      Thanks for all your sharing! It is valued.

    3. Hi Bevi…I can only speak from my own experience. It has been very helpful to me to pray to realize that I’ve never been separated from God. I spent many years analyzing and dwelling on bad experiences that happened to me in the past without really making any progress (and still get tripped up by that type of thinking occasionally). It was only when I realized those experiences were no part of my real identity, as a child of God, that I began to find freedom from the pain and negative side effects that accompanied those memories. But we all need to find our own way, so my comments were in no way meant to imply you are “wrong”. The nice thing about this blog is that we can all express ideas that we hope will be helpful to others and everyone can then decide for themselves what rings true to them.

  9. Thank you so much Evan for the very clear Truth you gave us in your today`s SV. I love the words “You are not mortal past. You are spiritual present” – so clear and comforting – it gives me a lot!

  10. Thank you Evan for this blog.
    Obviously it is causing many of us to think deeply.
    My perception is that we must claim our spiritual perfection now and stick with that knowing, for this is God’s knowing and brings healing to our thought, and therefore our body.
    I’m realizing we’re not working up to the perfect spiritual view, but working out from it.

  11. Dear Evan, I must say I agree with you and Brian on this one, completely. When I look in the mirror, I may see my human picture, but in my thought I am Knowing my true self as a spiritual child of Our Father. This Knowing helps me to drop away the “tares” (unreal) and store the “wheat” (real). What I truly am is what God made to be and there is not an element of matter in a spiritual idea. Thank you in advance of tomorrow’s BlogCaydee Kittredge

  12. Thanks, Evan, Brian, SpiritView Fan, et al! This has been eye-opening for me…re. How C.S. sees the Human. I was raised in a C.S. Family where I was abused by my Dad and it was never “seen and handled” by my Mom. Thus, my confusion over how C.S. sees and deals with the Human. I’ve had to do a lot of Therapy and 12-Step Groups to work thru the Trauma. And, even to this day, I still try and understand C.S., although it’s often hard to get past the false C.S. upbringing. I know there are others out there, raised in C.S., who have dealt with similar issues and have just simply left the Religion. At least I’m still Hangin’ in There!

  13. Very helpful sharing, all! Much food for thought…

    Evan, your reply to Brian’s first comment gave me new insights: “The field is the human consciousness…” you said. I had been thinking that the mixture of the tares/wheat is the human…the combination of mortal-mind and divine Mind (an impossible combo!) resulting in a hue-man consciousness (my term for human…a type of man, or color of man! Whatever works, huh). But I prefer your explanation. The field is the dream, the seeming human consciousness we seem to be involved in, seemingly! When Harvest Time comes, when the time is right per individual unfoldment, Truth entirely removes the Dream…the mortal, human disappears.

    Meanwhile, all that is true, has ever been true, is untouched. I find this statement of Mary Baker Eddy’s right on target, re all this: “Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man’s dominion over all the world.” Science and Health, page 14:25

    It seems to me to often be a matter of pronouns. WE are perfect. Then WE say We are hurting. Then We say HE is this, or SHE is that. So often it is just mortal mind talking about itself! Or the human getting glimpses of life separate from the dream… We must strive to
    be very Christianly scientific in our reasoning processes… And, always begin (and try to stay!) with “perfect God and perfect man as the basis of thought and demonstration.” MBE

    Thanks again, all.

    Onward!

  14. Thank you Evan for today’s blog and your clarification of comments by Brian and Bevi. Gives much food for thought.

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