"Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me,' Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You." (Psalm 139: 7-12, New King James Bible). "Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, 'This is the way, walk in it, Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left.' " (Isaiah 30: 21, New King James Bible). "I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, And crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, And not forsake them." (Isaiah 42: 16, New King James Bible). "Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!' "
(Revelation 11: 15, New King James Bible).
Ancient civilizations were mostly nomadic people. They roamed the world over, setting up new locations they called 'home' wherever they needed to be. For example, the desert nomads were always seeking new sources of water and larger spaces for their growing tribes and animal herds, away from other tribes; so, they carried their large tents with them, producing new homes, wherever they went. The Native American people often moved their homes to follow the seasons and also to follow the buffalo herds, which were a source of food, clothing and other needful things. Like the desert nomads, their homes had to be portable. In one way, these ancient ones had a better concept of 'home' than we of our modern civilizations today. The ancient nomads were not held in one location, nor did they cling to a physical structure on the land as their home, rooting them to one spot upon the earth. They had confidence that they could make a home wherever they went. Why? Because through their numerous travels, they had learned that 'home' wasn't one location on earth; rather, it was a mental concept that traveled with them. No one could take 'home' from them, because they had the everlasting concept of it within their minds and souls. Thus, they could materialize or produce a home, wherever they went. As time went on, however, tribes became too large to move, and many desert locations grew into small kingdoms. As more time passed, these kingdoms became countries. Likewise, in America, the continent filled with colonists from Europe and Asia. Over time, the American colonies became many states, and the states became a single country. Today, of course, our planet has become quite crowded, and it is population pressure that has changed so many things in the world. Owning a piece of land and fastening a physical structure to it (which can house one family or many) has come to mean 'home' to most of us, even in desert countries. Our more permanent, physical dwelling places symbolize our security, safety, sanctuary from the world 'out there' and, in general, create our comfort zones of daily existence. Still, our security is fragile. Natural occurrences, such as tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes, can wipe out someone's physical home in a heartbeat. Unnatural occurrences, such as the numerous wars around the world, are even more prevalent today than in ancient times. Physical dwelling places are destroyed every day. Yet, even where this is not the case, and even where we are quite secure with our material homes, we greatly fear their loss. Through them, we are tied tightly to our sense of well-being. The threat of losing them through financial trouble or acts of nature can undo us. They symbolize our place in the world, when in spiritual fact, our place is everywhere we go, not everywhere we stay—because like our ancient ancestors, we take 'home' with us, to be reproduced every place we go. This concept of 'home' travels with us because all the good and useful concepts created by the divine Intelligence go with us. Why? Because we are still at one with God, our Source of being. We have never left that infinite Mind that conceived us. We each emanate out from our Source, just as a sunbeam emanates out from the Sun. Were a beam of sunlight to be disconnected from the Sun, it would disappear into nothingness. But for a sunbeam to remain a sunbeam, it must remain connected to the Sun, which constantly renews it. In just such a manner, we are always linked to God, whether we believe it or not. We always exist in the Mind that conceived us; and we always maintain every single quality that was put there. There can be no separation in reality. We are at one with God throughout eternity, despite the false perceptions of this material or fleshly sense of identity. Since we really exist in the all-inclusive creation or kingdom of God, there is nothing outside of God. Wherever we wander, we're still with God and a vital, important part of Spirit's creation. For one of God's images and likenesses to be missing, creation would not be complete. We each complete creation. Even those who have physically died are forever alive in God, in their spiritual substance and essence, which is the real. The kingdoms of this earth, at all times, exist within the greater Kingdom of God. To our material perception, we cannot bear witness to such a kingdom. Yet, as spiritual perception begins to awaken within one's individual consciousness, we don't need physical proof of God's ever-present kingdom. We come to trust its invisible presence. In that forever presence of God's kingdom, no destructive elements can exist; evil makes appearances only in earthly kingdoms and the fleshly identities we assume. The awakened Christ identity, shared by all people, knows too much spiritual Truth about reality to express negative characteristics. Now, when asked where God and His harmonious Kingdom existed, Christ Jesus once answered, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation: nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17: 20, 21, New King James Bible). On another occasion, Jesus proclaimed of God, "He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being," (Last line Acts 17: 27; 1st line of Acts 17: 28). These references indicate that what we mentally believe to be true, and what actually IS true, both come from the thoughts we entertain and hold to within our human consciousness (the state of mind that still believes people to be both fleshly and spiritual). When we believe mostly or only in a physical realm, where God's presence and power seem impotent, we will not turn to God for deliverance from discordant things in the false material scene surrounding us; instead, we will write-off God as any Intelligence, any Presence, or any Power to change the material-seeming circumstances. Showing how our beliefs manifest themselves in our human experience, for example, observe the issue of travel. Most of us like to travel around the world, vacationing or changing our employment locations for (usually) short periods of time; and when we wander around, away from our physical locations of home, we can sometimes become nervous and insecure in the places we visit. We believe that we are leaving our place of safety and security 'back there' at home. Our confidence in traveling may rely only on how much money we carry to get us out of bad situations that might occur, naturally or unnaturally. So, while traveling, our venturing out into the world (from our physical home places) seems to come, at the very least, with some risk. Thoughts bombard our consciousness such as, 'what if we become stranded somewhere or even lost?' or, 'what if we fall overboard while on this cruise?' Whatever the threat that we entertain, this view of reality dictates the way we will act and react if or when negative situations make their appearances in our material environment. If we take things completely at face value and feel afraid (because we're not realizing the divine Presence that is the Authority over all creation) we may not turn to the spiritual facts of this divine Presence or God-with-us. We may not call forward in thought our true circumstances as children of God and citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Being completely oblivious to the spiritual facts of being, we probably won't wait, even a second, for the transformation that spiritual thought produces in the outer world of form. We won't expect anything from God, at all, when so many blessings could have been ours. Without turning to recognize and realize that we're always in God's loving kingdom, we won't experience the deliverance from some threat that seemed so powerful, just moments before. By keeping our mental windows and doors shut tightly against divine Love's spiritual presence and kingdom, we accept the bad and don't wait for the ever-present spiritual good to make its appearance known, which wipes out any lack of the good that perpetually emanates from God, through us, to help us. Here's an illustration of what I mean: Last summer, days before the last weekend in August, my husband and I received news that made it necessary for us to travel out of state, to a city up north. The city was medium sized, and during the last weekend in August of each year, this city hosts LOTS of sports tournaments. Motels and hotels are usually booked up a year in advance. Also, we were looking for smoke-free lodgings. It didn't matter; no rooms were available. Yet, we weren't discouraged. We called all the bed and breakfast establishments next (there were about seven within a twenty-mile radius of our destination) only to hear the same news: "no room at the Inn." Still, we both believed that our right place for the weekend was there, because we live within God's spiritually-present kingdom, which is always in harmony and balance—what blesses one, must bless all. So, denying the material circumstances, we continued to call every smoke-free place each day for a couple of days to check on cancellations. No cancellations materialized. The night before we were to leave, we packed our car, still trusting that our home for the 3-day weekend was already provided for us in the all-knowing and all-seeing Mind of God. After packing the car that night, I was walking up the stairs to our bedroom, mentally asking God, and the Christ Consciousness within, to open our spiritual eyes and ears so that we wouldn't miss seeing or hearing, from within, where we were to go. I remembered that a Bible passage said, "Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it…" (See full quotation, 2nd quote at top of article). I mentally told God that, even if we heard no 'word behind us' in the morning, we were leaving anyway, trusting that we live in God's love and kingdom and no place else. We knew that our right place was present, everywhere in God's kingdom. Before I reached the top of the stairs, it came to my thought to go back down the stairs and call the first bed and breakfast place we had called and see if a cancellation had occurred. We had already done this earlier in the day, but I obeyed this thought. The owner told us that he still had no cancellations, but he'd just talked to the owner of another B & B, much closer to our destination. He said that she (the owner) told him that someone had just cancelled, but it would be filled within minutes, because they had received at least twenty-five calls that day, inquiring about cancellations, and the phone was still ringing every few minutes. The man told us to call quickly, and we might find our lodgings for the weekend. We did so immediately, and the woman who owned the establishment said, "What excellent timing you have! It was only about ten minutes ago that someone cancelled, but since you're the first to call, the room is yours. That's our policy. The first one to call after a cancellation gets the room." Of course, we were greatly relieved that our home for the weekend had materialized. It turned out to be the best place we'd found in a long time. Each morning, for three days, we enjoyed a fantastic five-course breakfast. No wonder they rarely had cancellations! The same people come back throughout the whole summer, we were told. We met several of them. But we also realized that, had we failed to follow that directive to do exactly what came to thought when listening for divine guidance, we would have missed contact with the place provided for us in God's great balance. It was the first time, also, that I really understood that the all-seeing, all-knowing Intelligence of God is the only Mind that can see around corners. By that, I mean that our limited, physical senses can perceive very little in what's going on 'out there'. But there is no 'out there' to infinite Spirit. God sees all Its spiritual creation, at all times; this includes God's spiritual children, not of the flesh, but in their spiritual essence. The feelings of safety and security as belonging to and depending upon one's physical location, rather than depending upon the presence of the spiritual Kingdom of God, has its roots deep in the false, worldly belief that the human experience is a place of separation from God, our divine Source. It is material mindedness, or the lack of spiritual mindedness, which produces our sense of physical fear and threats. When we live and move in tune to the spiritual sense of all things, we become out of reach of matter's so-called laws and circumstances. Our divine circumstances are always present to preserve and protect us, but we must mentally turn to the channel of Spirit, despite the evidence of material situations, or we will continue to experience the results of the carnal mind's seeming control over the universe. It is good to know that it is the carnal mentality, or material consciousness, that is the culprit, and why. It is the culprit because the collective, material acceptance of things assesses reality from a physical, rather than a spiritual base. It (mentally) leaves God, the Creator, out of Its own creation, without realizing that God is infinite Spirit, and the creation of the divine Intelligence is in the invisible, spiritual, realm of Spirit. The Kingdom of God goes on, within us and without us, undetected by the five physical senses, but known to the spiritual sense within (some people call this, 'the sixth sense'; others call this spiritual sense within, the 'Christ Consciousness'). In the last quotation at the top of this article, the Book of Revelation tells us that "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ." (See full quotation at top of article.) Jesus was the spiritually enlightened individual, who entered this false material level of thought and belief and brought us this message. He revealed the Christ identity, lying dormant within everyone. His mission was to show us who we really are (the spiritual children of God) and where we really are (still in our original, spiritual home and divine circumstances, called Heaven). Having "that mind that was in Christ Jesus" (See Philippians 2:5, New King James Bible) means to be aware of who we really are and where we really are, in order to transform the bad we encounter on this material level of thought back to wholeness and normalcy. This awareness restores the human good that often seems to be missing in this material realm. It isn't magic; it's the truth of all real being we are to become enlightened with. For, once we're more cognizant of the invisible Kingdom of God and God's infinite, all-seeing, all-knowing Intelligence with us, we begin to realize how this higher Self functions with its oneness with God: It functions by reversing the discords and lacks in our human experience, through its mental guidance within. This spiritually-aware Christ Consciousness is forever with us to save and to protect us from every false and evil place that claims power over us. It shows us the way out of bad choices, places, and situations. It's our heavenly, mental influence from within that tells us, "You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, who is with you," (2 Chronicles 20:17, to 2nd period. New King James Bible). Once this higher awareness comes, we will wander where we will, with greater freedom from fear and problems that try to wander with us. Wherever we go, we'll begin to realize that we can't wander beyond, or out of, the Kingdom of God. We'll realize a simple truth I heard once in a Christian Science Sunday School: "There is no spot, where God is not."
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