Reposted from an original article in the June 21 ,2021 of the Christian Science Sentinel
By Juli Vice
When I was learning how to dance with a partner, I struggled to let him lead. I kept trying to anticipate his moves, but since we were dancing freestyle, I didn’t always know the direction we would be going or the step that would be coming next. In essence, we were both trying to lead. Finally, my partner said, “Stay on the balls of your feet; relax; and let me lead you.” Once I let go of a need to be in control and really trusted my partner, it was amazing! It was actually very freeing to let him lead me.
The concepts of leading and following also apply to prayer. At times, we may be tempted to try to lead God—to tell God how we would like things to work out. But when we acknowledge that God is the supreme Mind and that He will lead us only in ways that are right for us, we can trust God to do just that. In the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,Mary Baker Eddy challenges readers with this question: “Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already comprehend?” (p. 2).
This infinite, divine Mind, which knows all, is also a loving God who leads us only to what is the very best for us and everyone. As Psalm 23 assures us: “The Lord is my shepherd. . . . He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake” (verses 1–3, New Revised Standard Version). Thinking we know a better way and trying to make things happen through our own efforts makes things more difficult and hinders genuine progress.
The Bible relates the story of Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. Moses initially questioned how he could possibly do what God was asking of him, because he didn’t consider himself any great person. But God promised Moses that He would be with him, and affirmed His supreme authority as the one, great I am (see Exodus 3:11–15). Once Moses learned about God’s omnipresence and omnipotence, he was able to trust the great I am to guide him, and succeeded in leading the Israelites out of bondage against what must have seemed insurmountable odds.
What if Moses had decided to follow his own notions of how the children of Israel should be led out of Egypt? He certainly would have failed. But instead, he obediently followed God’s guidance, and his and the Israelites’ experiences on their forty-year journey proved repeatedly that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
The infinite Mind is also a loving God who leads us only to what is the very best for us and everyone.
Science and Health explains it this way: “As the children of Israel were guided triumphantly through the Red Sea, the dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear,—as they were led through the wilderness, walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes, and anticipating the promised joy,—so shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God” (p. 566).
Christian Science teaches that, as the Bible says, each one of us is the image, of God, Spirit, and is therefore wholly responsive to the divine Mind, which is everyone’s true Mind. This Science also teaches that Mind actively sustains and governs every aspect of the divine image, and that God’s children, or ideas, “are obedient to the Mind that makes them” (Science and Health, p. 295). It’s only natural, then, for us to follow God as Mind’s obedient ideas.
I learned a lesson about letting God lead when I felt I was ready to meet someone and get married. I have to admit, I was a bit impatient. I found myself constantly trying to think up scenarios that might help me meet someone. After many months of this and not meeting anyone, I was frustrated. When I remarked about it to a coworker, she suggested that if I stopped looking, then that person would appear.
This helped me realize that I had been trying to lead God. I replied that I was done with that and knew I could trust God to lead me.
Just a couple of weeks later, a man was assigned to our department, and it was my job to train him. Since I was in a God-trusting and spiritually receptive attitude by then, I was able to perceive this man’s wonderful qualities. God had literally placed him right in front of me! He was exactly the person that was best for me, and we have had a loving marriage full of joy and spiritual growth for over thirty years.
Not only was the relationship enriching for us as companions, but it turned out to be life-altering for him. He had been yearning for a better concept of God and was able to find that through being introduced to Christian Science.
My initial ideas about a future spouse had been so limited—and selfish! I had been thinking about what a spouse could offer me, not what I could offer him. Throughout our time of getting to know one another, I realized that God had greater plans for us than either of us could have conceived, and I knew that I could completely trust God to lead us.
Since those early times, my husband and I have established the practice of listening for God’s direction anytime a family decision needs to be made.
It is so comforting and freeing to know that the great I am is leading us in every aspect of our experience. He is our lead “partner” in the dance of our lives.