Am I material or am I spiritual?

Physique isn’t what it seems to be. Because a physical body is so evident, we might reject spirituality or try to reconcile matter with spirituality as though they share space in us – as if we are material beings with a spiritual side. But this reasoning breaks down when the broader facts of Christian Science are considered and put to the test in healing.   

A couple of years ago, severe pain developed in one of my feet making walking even short distances difficult. This went on for several months until I became so worn down by it that I began to think of myself only in terms of physical limitation. I started acting like pain was my new “normal,” and accommodated it by avoiding walking.

Then one day as I was praying, I knew I had a choice in what I experienced of myself.  In the same way that I could choose whether or not I limit my knowledge of the solar system to a “sun moves and earth is still” perspective that seemed true from where I stood, I could consider a larger, proven body of knowledge and understand how things really work. I decided to consider Jesus’ perspective of man when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)   Jesus looked beyond physique to find the man God had made. He understood the nature of optical and physical illusions, demonstrating a divine Science of God and man; and this understanding healed the sick.

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In one case, his disciples failed to heal a case of blindness. Using blindness as their starting point, the natural route to healing involved localizing a cause for the problem; but Jesus looked at the man and saw something other than diseased physique. He saw “the works of God made manifest in him.” (John 9:3) This same God he had also defined as “Spirit”, “perfect” and “good.” (See John 4:24, Matthew 5:48, Mark 10:18). These two contrasting views - one of a blind man, the other of man as the manifestation of Spirit - were as different as darkness and light.  But only one could heal.

I decided to work in the same light as did Jesus. I considered that the kingdom of God, of divine Spirit, is within me, and that as Spirit’s likeness, I am spiritual. I realized that Spirit’s creation, the perfect and good manifestation of God, can’t be reduced to invalidism. Sourced in God, who is permanent Good, my spirituality could no more be confined by a pained or deteriorating physique than light could be sealed up in a rusty barrel. Glimpsing my true essence, my spirituality, I knew I wasn’t actually trapped, but could move as freely as a beam of light.

I was suddenly unrestricted and stopped acting like an invalid. I walked normally and even began to run. Quickly, the pain was gone and I was healed. It has been two years and it has never come back.

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Science and Health explains, “A correct view of Christian Science and of its adaptation to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen. Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the power of Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against physical enemies, — even to the extinction of all belief in matter, evil, disease, and death, —nor insist upon the fact that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 116)

Thankfully, we have this vast body of knowledge - proven in practice - that can shift us from a narrow physical self-view to grasp our present spiritual being and freedom from physical limits.

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