“Get out of thinking about yourself and pray about the economy!” This is the thought that came to me when I was struggling with a very disturbing upset stomach – a stomach flu – I supposed it would be called.
I remembered from my college economics class that “the economy” is anything that deals with “production, distribution, and consumption.”
I reasoned that since God is good and the creator of all that exists, that God, Spirit, is the producer of everything real and has sole governance over production. What is produced, then, must be spiritual. In Genesis 1:31 the Bible reports that “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” If all that God, the divine Principle, produced is good then there can’t be over-production resulting in excess to be disposed of or under-production resulting in any lack of supply. Any production that is not good in quality or quantity or timing can’t come from God or be real. Problematic production must come from a faltering human sense of principle. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures 62:29-30 Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Our false views of life hide eternal harmony, and produce the ills of which we complain.” A disrupted system of production has to be an illusion of mortal sense unable to have any effect on reality. And what else is there than reality – really?
As I am often reminded when I attend one of the many churches of Christ, Scientist around the world, distribution is governed by divine Love; the divine Love that “always has met and always will meet every human need.” God doesn’t have favorite children, favorite countries, favorite classes, etc. God declared all that he made to be “very good” – not some great and some not so great, not some wealthy in Spirit and some poor in Spirit, but all supplied with an infinite abundance of His goodness to meet every need. I considered II Cor 8:12-15 where it tells us that God doesn’t intend that one person be burdened due to another’s ease, but that there should be a equality, each giving when and what they may, each meeting the each other’s need from the abundant talents or gifts that God has given them as part of daily supply. This distribution can’t be hindered by weather, transportation, corruption, greed or lack. I became profoundly grateful for the generosity of others and also for God’s gifts that I am able to share and distribute.
In praying about consumption I knew neither I nor anyone else can be limited in how much substance or understanding (“sub” meaning “under” and “stance” meaning “standing”) we are able to consume (that is, take in, comprehend and put into use). In Spirit there can’t be any over-consumption or under-consumption. We are all fed by God’s daily love. Eddy’s poem/hymn “Love” contains the line, “Fed by Thy love alone we live”. This does not allow for under producers and over-consumers or over-producers and under-consumers. There is a balance of blessings – exactly what each idea of God needs at every moment is available.
One part of the mission of the Christ is to gather the rays of infinite Truth into the focus of ideas so that we humans can consume (that is comprehend and put into practice) the divine concepts that supply, heal, guard and guide here and now in our human experience. The ever-present Christ is with each of us always giving us divine ideas that meet our needs. What a blessing!
This prayer helped me to realize (that is make real – like homogenize means to make homogeneous or categorize means make in categories) in my own life Love’s blessings of production, distribution, and consumption that comprise the divine economy. Eddy wrote in Science and Health 327:20 “…evil has in reality neither place nor power in the human or the divine economy.” I thought of many ways in my life that I could trust God’s love and provision more fully. I felt totally at peace in understanding that the divine economy is the only real economy and only God governs its production, distribution, and consumption.
By the time I was able to say a sincere, “Amen” to this prayer, I immediately felt a great calming of any fear I had, or had heard of, related to the world economy and the stomach upset that I had been suffering from was forgotten and gone! There was no further physical discomfort or problem. I’m so grateful for this Science of the Christ that allows us to see beyond the material situation to the reality of God’s creation.