12. 22
“Occupy till I come!” Wait for your reward, and “be not weary in well doing.”
The word “occupy” led me back to Florence Roberts’ article “Meekness and Restoration”:
Meekness … represents the calm strength of one who knows who he is, bends with the Father’s will because he is sure of the power at hand. Such a one walks conforming to whatever shape it is being divinely led to take because he has no human ambition but trusts and rests completely in the Father’s care.
From this, I have a clearer sense that God made me to be me. While some of the Ten Commandments warn me not to have any false gods, others seem to admonish against trying to construct a false “me.” Am I really being that best reflection of God if I spend time wanting what others have or wishing I was someone else? The list in Galatians 5: 19-22 of “the works of the flesh” that “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” includes emulations and envyings. What purpose or place could I ever hope to occupy, and what shape am I conforming to, if not the one God has made for me?
The 1828 Webster’s definition for “occupy” is, in part:
3. To take up; to possess; to cover or fill.
4. To employ; to use.
From “Possession” by Mary Baker Eddy:
Take possession of healing, of health, of demonstration, of results, of a sense of results. Let the results be what you decide and not what some other mortal thinks for you. Our land of Canaan lies before you. Let us go in and possess the land.
So, God made me with a place and purpose and space to fill; and then gave me all I need to occupy this space, which includes Christian Science, this church, practitioner support, the beauty of His creation, and so much more. Again, as Bicknell Young wrote in “Finance” I need to have thanksgiving and recognition for all God gives, and when I do that, how could I do less than joyously and gratefully occupy the place and space He made just for me?
Thank you for this lesson!