“Gain a little each day in the right direction” is a gentle instruction given in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 21). Isn’t this what each of us should desire – to be doing good, helping those in need, and healing? Thus we gain good and a clearer understanding of what it means to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12, 13).
Wow! It is God who ensures our success on this path. In the “Christian Science Quarterly” Bible lesson this week on “Probation After Death,” we are continually assured that God is working as we are listening for direction.
In the full text of the quote from Science and Health mentioned above, Mrs. Eddy speaks of us as disciples of Jesus and describes our part in this spiritual journey this way: “If the disciple is advancing spiritually, he is striving to enter in. He constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit. If honest, he will be in earnest from the start, and gain a little each day in the right direction, till at last he finishes his course with joy” (p. 21).
But what happens if we don’t strive, if we look away from “the imperishable things of Spirit” instead of toward them, or if in some way we leave off being honest and earnest in our journey? In this week’s lesson, we find a beautiful example of how God still directs us.
Jonah was a prophet of God, and he was chosen by God to go to the city of Nineveh and preach repentance from sin. But, instead of obeying God, Jonah got into a ship to escape to another city. He had his reasons. Nineveh was famous for corruption and sin. Jonah thought they didn’t deserve to be forgiven by God even if they did repent. So, he tried to run away from God.
Science and Health says: “If living in disobedience to Him, we ought to feel no security, although God is good” (p. 19). And that is the way it went for Jonah.
God didn’t allow Jonah’s disobedience. The story goes on to say that God sent a big storm, and the ship was going to sink. To save the ship, Jonah chose death, asking the mariners to throw him into the ocean. Death may seem the solution when we turn away from God, but God never leaves us, and death is never God’s plan. In this case, God knew that Jonah needed a “time out” to refocus on obedience. And he was given this time by being swallowed by a giant fish.
Jonah used his three days in the fish’s belly to recommit to loving God and being obedient. Then he was spat out on the shore and went to Nineveh and preached God to the people, who then repented.
I unexpectedly had a Jonah opportunity recently. I felt a coworker had treated me very badly over a decade ago. When her name came up in conversation, even these many years later, just hearing it hurt. Although I try to love in all circumstances, I did not feel love for her.
Feeling despondent, I asked God, “What am I supposed to do with this hurt?” The answer I got back surprised me: “Why don’t you forgive her?” I was humbled. Here, more than a decade later, I never even thought she was worthy of being forgiven. This was a sin on my part. When I recognized both of us as God’s children, I was immediately able to forgive, and all the hurt and judgment were gone. It was as if I had spent over ten years in the whale, and God just spat me out on the beach, redeemed.
This may seem like a small healing, but it freed me to be able to look back at other difficult experiences in my life and only see the joy and love that had been expressed. Suddenly so much “sin and mortality” was “put off” because I had, in some way, done what Mrs. Eddy says to do in Science and Health: “Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, – they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, – in order that sin and mortality may be put off” (p. 265).
God had been patient with Jonah, and Jonah had gravitated Godward. I, too, had been helped by letting my affections and aims grow more spiritual. This is the beautiful process of gaining “a little each day in the right direction” – and God is always working with us.
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