by Evan Mehlenbacher
I like January. It’s the month that most people associate with a fresh start. And fresh starts with a spiritual spin are wonderful.
I like it when January rolls around each year because it’s the month that most nearly signifies a fresh start, a new beginning, or an opportunity to “get it right this time.”
Many people make New Year’s resolutions on January 1st. Some of the more popular goals include losing weight, paying off debt, or saving more money. Others strive for spiritual attainments like spending quality time with their family or devoting time to prayer and the pursuit of spirituality.
I like setting spiritual goals myself. At different times, I’ve had the goal of losing weight, eliminating debt or making better investments. But each time, I discovered the real goal became something spiritual.
For example, losing weight became a lesson in gaining spiritual contentment. Paying off debt turned into a lesson of being grateful for what I already had. And saving funds required discipline, moderation and wisdom, all Spirit-inspired qualities. After having my material goals chastised frequently enough with the greater spiritual lessons needed, I began to accept that I should set a spiritual goal in the first place and trust the needed human adjustment to follow as my thought was spiritualized and improved.
When I was 23 or so, I started worrying about building a family. I had recently graduated from college. I was single, working in a stable job and thinking about getting married someday but with no marital prospects on the horizon. Absolutely none! What was I to do? I tormented.
I could stay single forever. That would be okay, I thought. Many men and women live alone happily. But I wasn’t convinced bachelorhood was the right lifestyle for me.
My managerial-oriented mind went into action. Should I devise a plan to find a wife? I pondered. Should I strive to meet more women and increase my possibilities of finding a mate? I seriously considered the options.
In praying for a solution, I thought about Jesus’ statement, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” From my study of Christian Science, I interpreted that statement to mean, seek first an understanding of God and of my relationship to God, and my human needs would be met. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science wrote on the same theme, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” Many people read this and think divine Love, or God, gives us material things, like money, cars, jobs and spouses! But I read it to mean that divine Love gives us spiritual things, like love, wisdom, intelligence, peace, and contentment, which when felt, reveals our completeness in God, as God’s image. And this understanding of our completeness in God manifests itself outwardly as daily needs met.
The kicker is that we can’t outline ahead of time how our needs will be met. We have to trust the outcome to the wisdom of divine Mind.
In praying for a resolution to my remaining-a-bachelor-forever fears, I decided not to set a selfish goal of seeking a wife, but to pursue a spiritual goal of understanding my completeness in Love. And by Love, I mean God, my creator and source.
I thought about the qualities of Love I expected a successful marriage to include. Qualities like generosity, unselfish giving, tangible caring, uplifting joy, buoyancy, and proactive love. I looked at my demeanor at the time, and decided I could do a better job of expressing Love’s outreach toward others. I was a quiet, introverted kind of guy then, and could see that to feel complete in Love, I needed to open up more and lose my fear of expressing Love’s generosity and comfort toward others abundantly.
With these insights, I had a plan—a spiritual plan—to let divine Love reform my character and reveal more of my completeness.
I worked on expressing a more complete Love in my life for three years. When I least expected it, the woman who would become my wife walked across my path. Ten months later we wed, and have been happily married for 20 years.
You likely have your own set of goals you’d like to reach this New Year. If you haven’t already, from my experience, I’d encourage you to look at those goals and see if there is a greater spiritual lesson behind them that needs to be gained. Is it more money, less pounds, and greater fame that will meet your long term needs? Or is there an opportunity to grow in wisdom, character, and spiritual mindedness that beckons for attention? Setting a spiritual goal leaves you a better person from the inside out, improved morally, physically and spiritually, and these reformations, in turn, meet your real human needs.
Happy New Year!
Matt 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Science and Health: 494:10-11
Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.
WOW! This was a great read and a much needed “pick me up” this afternoon. Thank you!
Thanks Evan, I found this do-able and very welcome!
I always wanted to hear a little more detail about the spiritual qualities you worked with in terms of seeking a spouse. Very enlightening. Thanks.
Please explain the leap from ” understanding my completeness in Love” to ” … the qualities of love I thought a successful marriage would include.
i don’t make the connection from the former to the latter. Thanks.
To #4…
Aw, good question.
Love is not a theoretical, abstract concept held in the human mind. Love is a living power that we express as children of God. And that expression, naturally, has an identity. The identity is qualities of Love expressed.
So, really, there is no leap from seeing one’s completeness in Love and experiencing the blessings of love. To be complete in Love is to be Love’s reflection, which includes outwardly manifesting the qualities of Love, like generosity, kindness, unselfishness, care and compassion. To be complete in Love and to express these qualities is one and the same thing.
I figured a prosperous marriage had to include an active abundance of Love qualities being expressed, since the spiritual foundation of an enduring marriage is Love. So, I focused on being a better expression of Love, and that desire took a specific direction, as I wrote about above.
Does that help?
Loved the article, thanks Evan! Especially your explanation of how we can reflect Love through ways such as “generosity, unselfish giving, tangible caring, uplifting joy, buoyancy, and proactive love”. I have work to do!
Evan, I really got A LOT of good spiritual thoughts that I’ve been thinking about the last couple days from reading your blog here.
I think it would be great if the Board of Lectureship started a lecture serious about relationships — specifically the long term ones that are designed to bring stability to individuals and support everyone’s growth in the most loving ways. I think this would be really relevant!
I meant “lecture series” in the above response ; - )
One of my best friends has been married for 10 years and he and his wife has been active in their church faith (different than CS) for their whole dating relationship and marriage. And they’ve gone to weekly meetings — seperate from church services — that support the concept of marriage and family. By all accounts, I think it’s helped a lot, as they have such a good family life.
The Mother Church puts out publications periodically addressing marriage, but I haven’t seen a lecture supporting that topic in a long time. Interestingly, when I really made CS my own over ten years ago, I remember being skeptical when I read a copy of the Sentinel that was titled “Valuing Marriage.” As a young person who has just graduated from college at that time, and who saw so much value of studying CS from the spiritual perspective, I sincerely felt like the church was trying to promote some human conpromising situation by saying that we should value marriage. I guess I figured that those who REALLY took CS seriously shouldn’t have to worry about marriage.
I think it can get confused, in our CS movement, sometimes how Mary Baker Eddy worded different things in Science and Health and in some of her other popular articles like “wedlock.” It’s only as I’ve had more real life experience that I feel more surely that Mrs. Eddy would never have expected even here most sincere students to “emerge gently from matter into Spirit,” but to never pursue the support of a committed relationship with another person, if they felt inclined in that direction. I’m not saying that everyone does feel inclined towards making themselves available to a committed relationship. But for those Christian Scientists to do naturally have desire to be in this sort of relationship, perhaps some clarification could be made through CS lectures, that marriage is a really healthy thing.