Freed from health limits

Have you ever seen a huge, two-ton elephant walking resignedly in a small circle, constrained only by a thin stick and flimsy rope tied to his ankle—and wondered why the elephant didn’t just walk off? Why would he accept such a lot in life? I came across an article in the September 19, 2004, issue of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that described how baby elephants that are to be used as working animals are trained.

The article, “Don’t be a dumbo,” describes how a trainer fastens a heavy manacle and chain to the elephant’s leg, securing the other end of the chain to a metal stake driven deep into the ground. When the baby elephant tries to walk around, he cannot move any further than the length of the chain. The elephant may try repeatedly to escape, but this unyielding restraint holds him in check.

After a while, the baby elephant becomes so accustomed to this limitation that he stops resisting the chain and remains within the limited circumference of the area that the length of the chain allows him to move, completely passive and thoroughly convinced that he cannot escape. When the training period is complete, all it takes to hold the elephant, despite his enormous strength, is a light rope and thin wooden stake. Once the elephant has been conditioned to accept this limited mobility, he remains convinced of his captivity, even though he actually could easily go freely wherever he pleased. His mental impressions about the strength of the rope and a wooden stake—not the rope and stake themselves—keep him permanently imprisoned.

You might say that in a similar way humanity has been conditioned to accept views of health and well-being that imprison men, women, and children in acute or chronic illness, crippling and deadly disease, and limited mobility. Chained, so to speak, to ever-increasing information about diseases, matter-based causes, inevitability, incurability, prognosis, and myriad treatments, people unwittingly are often conditioned to have seasonal colds and flu, as well as aching joints, vision, hearing, and memory loss when they reach senior years, and a host of other health issues.

Yet, what if those “chains” called disease and deterioration aren’t as solid and powerful as we believe them to be? What if they’re actually as powerless to control us as a light rope is to restrain a grown elephant? It’s one thing truly to be held captive. It’s another thing altogether to believe you’re imprisoned when actually you’re free.

If it’s possible that we’re not actually restrained by health conditions but just think we are, how can we break free? Jesus offers this answer: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” And the truth he was referring to goes far beyond any human opinion of what is true. This truth has its basis in God, divine Spirit. The truth is that God knows each of us, not as mortals susceptible to adverse health conditions, but as His offspring, His children, made in His likeness to be altogether good.

And the way that God knows and sees us never changes. We are forever good, perfect, whole. It is our oneness with God that makes this so. God is permanently intact and perfect, never subject to disease or injury. And as God’s expression, each of us represents this perfect nature of God—which makes us completely free. This truth can never be obliterated.

The fact is that what may appear to be an individual chained to disease, injury, or incapacitation, is not the truth—as compellingly real as any of these conditions seem to be. But God hasn’t created them, doesn’t know them, and doesn’t create or enforce any laws to shackle humanity to anything unlike good, which is God’s very nature. Knowing this true spiritual fact of existence, we can reasonably admit that health problems that confront or threaten us are actually not powers or forces at all.

They simply seem real to our conditioned thought, just as the so-called power in the light rope and wooden stake seem very real to the trained elephant. Likewise, the so-called power that health conditions seem to hold over us is really only a mental impression, a conditioned acceptance on our part that disease and adverse physical conditions are real. Yet understanding our God-given power over these false conditions can set us free.

Of course, to become completely free of all the mental convictions that restrain us is easier said than done sometimes—just ask the elephant! But the way to start is to admit that what appear as bonds—illness, injury, chronic aging problems, even diseases considered terminal—are not physical realities but simply a collection of false beliefs that are based on the assumption that a mortal power opposed to or different from God is present when actually it is not.

In her book Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy explained that “The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love. What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God? Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free.”

The question: “What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God?” is an important one. The answer to it, whether a million years ago, today, or a million years from now, is always the same: Nothing.

No power exists to oppose God because God is omnipresent—everywhere at once. As we come to understand this truth about God’s nature and essence, we can no longer be educated into thinking that we are or can be trapped by any physical condition, because actually God has caused us to be completely and unconditionally free.

So, here’s a great fact: It’s impossible to realize freedom and believe in captivity at the same time—it’s one or the other. If the elephant realized the powerlessness of the light rope and stake to hold him captive, he would simply walk away and be free. He would no longer believe this feeble arrangement had any control over him. In the same way, we can realize the truth that nothing can keep us captive—and that nothing ever will. No health condition can chain us, rope us, or hold us down. We are completely free simply on the grounds that God has made us so. There are no limits to health and well being.

I had the opportunity to prove this truth for myself many years ago. I’d grown up with a foot that had developed incorrectly. Day after day, year after year, my activities were limited. Pain was a constant companion. In prayer one evening, I quietly listened to God. The Christly message I heard in my heart was, “You have always been My cherished, perfect, spiritual child. You have been this way all along.”

What a beautiful thing to hear! I didn’t stop with just hearing it, though. I knew that I had to accept the fact that God had made me free. The condition I’d thought was binding me was not a power at all, because God’s love is the only power. I accepted this realization unreservedly and permanently. The “chains” of limitation fell away. I was free. Free to run and play and work. The foot was healed completely.

Science and Health announces this truth to each of us: “Citizens of the world, accept the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God,’ and be free! This is your divine right.” No matter what health condition appears to limit your life at this moment, don’t be fooled like the elephant—you can move forward because you know the truth that God has already made you free.

Mark Swinney is a practitioner and teacher of Christian Science in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States.

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