People often struggle with finding purpose to their life. And they often look in all the wrong places.
Some seek it in fortune, others in fame, and many in raising a family. Finding a satisfying career, success in one’s profession and valuing the virtues and benefits of a healthy home life are important, and have a vital role to play. But there is one overarching purpose to life that trumps them all—learning about God.
God, as divine Mind, is the universe we live in. God is the fount of life, the Mind that holds everything together, the Soul that spawns individuality, and the Love that unites and supports. The more we learn about God, the more we learn about the universe we live in and how everything works together for good.
For instance, success in marriage teaches us to love unselfishly, and the love that makes it all work comes from God. Every marriage encounter is an opportunity to learn more about God as Love and how to reflect divine Love better.
Success in the business world requires one to exercise insight and foresight and many other qualities of Mind that lead to wise decision-making. These capacities come from reflecting the Mind of God that has a solution to every problem.
Success in the arts is about reflecting Soul’s unlimited creativity and individuality.
Success in any worthy activity comes back to learning more about God, what God is capable of doing, and our ability to reflect that divine capacity.
Even the act of enjoying a single day originates in God. It grows out of gratitude, love and appreciation for the goodness of God all around.
When we make understanding God our primary purpose for living, flowers of hope and joy bloom all around, and in the most unexpected places. What appeared to be a dark situation or hopeless condition becomes a learning opportunity. We see light instead of darkness. We don’t dwell on the negative and let it get us down. We rise above it and conquer it with an improved understanding of God’s help on the scene.
So, seek out God’s presence today! It’s a worthwhile activity, in fact, the one most important endeavor of all. And it will reward you with a feeling of profound meaning and purpose.
Thank you Evan! I really really like this idea that our purpose in life is to learn about God!
This idea is so applicable to our efforts to heal conditions through prayerful treatment. Often it seems we become so focused on “the problem” when praying about something, that our prayers “reinforce” the problem in thought rather than “eliminating it” from thought. Perhaps if the focus of our prayer shifted from “trying to heal some problem” to “learning more about God” this would not be the case and our prayers would be more effective in removing the problem from thought (i.e. replacing it in thought with the truth about God and His idea) and thereby healing would result.
Yesterday I read one of your old blog postings that ties in with this idea. Here is a link to it for others that would like to read it too. Thanks again Evan for the loving way you help the followers of your blog learn more about God!
http://spiritview.net/2009/11/health-not-disease.html
To understand God better and to live that understanding more and more each day is the best purpose of all………bringing joy and healing to one’s self, to one another and to our world. Thank you Evan. Thanks too, Brian, for pointing out Evan’s 2009 blog! Most helpful!!
So loved this, Evan! Thanks! Mrs. Eddy talked about our Experience Here as like being in School. We’re here to Learn all we can about God: Truth, Life and Love! Although most of the time I feel like I’m in Kindergarten, at least I can take comfort in the idea that: “Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.”!!! Happy Weekend and Love to All!
There is nothing more to say. Evan said it all in this blog, Brian, And Bevi also. I have always thought this way but humanly I worry that it won’t work for me. I GOTTA CUT THESE DOUBTS NOW. For the happy satisfied way is all in this blog.
Hi Tobias…I’ve been thinking a lot about “doubt” as it relates to the practice of Christian Science lately. On page 495 of Science and Health is this statement:
Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not.
The interesting thing to me is that I frequently find Christian Scientists pointing out the importance of handling “fear”, but rarely do I find Christian Scientists pointing out the importance of handling “doubt”. Yet in the statement above, Mrs. Eddy gives those two “errors” equal weight.
A couple of weeks ago the subject of the Bible Lesson was “Ancient and Modern Necromancy, alias Mesmerism and Hypnotism, Denounced.” I was inspired during that week to spend time studying again what is meant by the term “Animal Magnetism” as used in Christian Science. There are many valid definitions of that term but I found one way to characterize “Animal Magnetism” is to think of it as “a suggestion that would inhibit our ability to think clearly”. In the articles I read it was pointed out how important it is to do specific prayer treatment when this is detected in thought. I concluded that “doubt” is an example of a suggestion that would try to confuse us or counteract our specific prayer treatment for some issue. And therefore it is VERY important to do specific prayer treatment for doubt when you detect it in your thinking…since it is an example of Animal Magnetism in thought.
For example, if you were praying to heal some supply issue, you might consider God as Love and therefore as a loving Father-Mother that always provides your every need. But if doubt was in your thinking at the same time, you could pray in that fashion for weeks without possibly seeing any result of your prayers because the “doubt” would be like a “blockade” to prevent those healing truths from being effective. However, if you took some time to prayerfully address that doubt in your thinking (i.e. perhaps by realizing God as the only power and therefore there is nothing but his law at work, etc.), you would remove the “blockade” and then you would experience healing.
Just thought I’d share this in case it is helpful. It has been very helpful to me.
Thanks, Brian, for giving us the link to Evan’s blog. I just loved the analogy of cold to heat. You can’t measure cold – you just measure the amount of, or lack of, heat. Just as there is no darkness, just the lack of light. And, of course, no disease. It is just the false appearance of the lack of health. Thanks so much, Evan, for all of your inspiring writings.
Dear Evan,
How much we need this post, as I find this question of purpose tends to re-surface from day today. And thank you, Brian, for what you shared. Very helpful.
Thanks Evan. This is perfect for me today.