Happy New Year to you all, and may we gain a greater awareness that God is always with us -- loving us, caring for us, directing us. And yes, healing us.
To understand that our dear Father is with us in everything we do, everywhere we may go or be, is beyond price. And two life illustrations of this Biblical truth (see Genesis 21:22) show what a knowledge of His ever-presence can do for one.
A couple of nights ago, we saw a program on WWII, on the Pacific campaign. The battle of Iwo Jima, to be exact. Although I had known about the fierce fighting that went on due to a close friend of my mother's who served in the Marines and shared some of his experience, something new came out. The narrator said that 1 out of 3 Marines was either killed or wounded. 1 out of 3! I couldn't help thinking of Frank who came through that murderous conflict with not a scratch. Many pounds thinner, but that was all. And to what did this boy owe his safety? To the conviction he had gained from studying Christian Science that God was always with him. He was in fact in the Sunday School at the time of he enlisted, and what he had learned there brought him through intact, he said.
And the other experience I thought of involved a friend of ours in Australia. Paul served in the Solomon Islands and was also a life-long Christian Scientist. To what did he owe his safety through months of fighting in the jungles? As he wrote in a testimony that appeared in the Christian Science Sentinel, it was realizing this great truth: God and man are inseparable. Paul used to say, while in foxholes with bullets whizzing around, "God and I are not two but one; and that one is God".
Yes indeed, to have a working knowledge of God's power and presence is a treasure to many, certainly to me, and one of my favorite statements on this topic is found in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mrs. Eddy writes: "Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man's oneness with the Father, and for this we owe him endless homage." (p. 18)
No matter what situation we may find ourselves in--even should a sense of safety be urgently needed--we can turn in complete confidence to God, divine Love, who, as the Bible assures us time and time again, is an ever-present, unfailing help in trouble. It is obvious that Christ Jesus fully realized the inseparability of man from God. He knew that man is God's child, whole and safe in the care of his creator, regardless of appearances.
In line with Jesus' teachings--his statement, for example, that God is Spirit (see John 4:24)--Christian Science brings out that our true selfhood, as the outcome of Spirit, is spiritual, not material; that man is not bound by human circumstances, is not at the mercy of worldly events. God's child can never, for an instant, be deprived of his Father's loving care, can never be out of his God-provided niche of spiritual security.
The Psalmist sang, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." (Psalms 90:1) It is for this very reason that in truth we are eternally exempt from harm of any kind. We have never actually been apart from our divine source, God--not even for a moment. As God's man, dwelling in Him, we are and always have been preserved by His unerring laws of order, safety, and exemption from dangerous conditions.
What a potent help in everyday life, to know that we are always in God's presence.
