"I believe for everyone who goes astray, someone will come, to show the way…" (A line from the old tune, "I Believe", author unknown). "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." (Exodus 23: 20). "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3: 5 & 6). "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." (Mark 11: 24).
To survive in this human experience, we need many material things. For normal health we need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a dwelling place for shelter. These are the basics. Once these things are assured, we then need emotional and psychological things, such as self-esteem, education, income producing activity, and entertainment. But wait…something has been left out! What about people? Don't we sometimes need other people to help us when we can't help ourselves? And don't these sometimes-needed individuals have to come into our lives at the right time, at the very moments we need them? Well, we aren't alone on this planet, and that's the good news; for at different times, throughout our lives, it is definitely someone we need, and not something. For example, we might have enough money to buy that new home, but we need the right someone to build it for us. Or, we may have an automobile for transportation, but, for one reason or another, we need someone to drive for us. In short, we often need individuals in our lives to take care of the tasks we cannot do for ourselves, or help us in times of distress and injustice, when we feel so alone in fighting the system. It is in those trying times (when we feel humanly inadequate to help ourselves out of a bad situation) that we often find our higher Source of whomever we need to help us. When we mentally turn to this Source—the invisible, divine Presence of God—the right someone will come into our human experience to set things right. Here's what I mean: In the early 1990s, I went back to school for a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. I was in a program that allowed me to create my own degree curriculum (courses). Early in the process, my thesis (a science fiction manuscript) was approved by the university. In my last semester before graduation, my 425 page manuscript was completed. Always being cautious, I went to the English department office a week before the deadline to turn in my thesis. When I arrived at the office, I was told that the part-time instructor of my last class (who was to receive the thesis projects) was requiring students to bring their work to her home. This didn't seem to be a problem for me, because this instructor lived about ten minutes from my own home. Although the university was soon to close for semester break, I still had a week to go before the deadline. That week I called and visited the instructor's home several times. She was never home, nor did she return any of my phone messages. I tried to contact the university office again, but all were closed. By Thursday night, I was in a panic. I didn't know which way to turn. I had only one more day to place this manuscript in the hands of an instructor or professor at the university. At about 9:30 p.m. on Thursday night, the instructor finally answered her phone. Unfortunately, she told me that she was leaving in the morning, and I'd just have to take an incomplete. It meant I wouldn't graduate. I protested, saying that my deadline was still on Friday, and she told me that she didn't care; the university had to realize that "she had a life outside of the school." Then she just hung up on me. Finally, I calmed down and turned to God. I remembered that the Kingdom of God is always with us, despite the fact that it isn't perceived physically. I prayed to know whatever spiritual truth I needed to see, in order to be delivered from this injustice. What came to my thought was that there is only One Intelligence that controls all creation, including all identities. This all-seeing, all-knowing divine Intelligence perceives them all. I didn't have to fight in this battle; divine Love is always taking care of me. Also, in the Kingdom of God, in my real circumstances, no injustice exists. I felt peaceful then, even when I awoke on Friday morning. When I feel that peace, it usually means that the healing in human consciousness has taken place, because all fear has left. Peace replaces fear. So, I waited for God's deliverance to manifest itself, humanly, from this unjust circumstance. At about 2:00 p.m. that Friday, I received a phone call from a different female professor at the university. She said that she'd heard about my situation—that I tried to turn in my thesis to the university office a week ago but I'd been turned away. She also told me that the instructor in charge wasn't behaving rightly and was currently out of town. The professor then told me that if I could be downtown at 6:00 p.m. that evening, she would gladly meet with me and accept my thesis on behalf of the university. I did so, and by Friday night, all was well with my graduation. When I pondered how quickly the divine Presence had solved this for me, I realized that it had to do with the all-seeing, all-knowing consciousness of God. I believe that God sees Its children, not as physical creatures wandering about in a material environment, but, rather, the Almighty perceives the spiritual essence of each one of us, all the time. Each of us emanates out from the divine Consciousness, and each of us is still connected to this divine Intelligence. In human terms, we are all telepathic with this divine Consciousness, so It can communicate with anyone at anytime in our existence. It can call upon people to do something and, mentally, send someone to help us. In the whole, sorry state of this human condition, (where good and evil seem to live side by side in every thing and every one) our behavior is often dictated by the carnal mind (the false sense of ourselves that believes us to be physical creatures, separated from our spiritual Source). This belief in our separation from God is the only thing that keeps the belief in evil alive. Still, it takes faith to believe in an invisible presence. Faith grows over time, as we prove this divine Presence in little ways at first, then the bigger ways. For faith to grow in human consciousness, we must begin trusting in God's eternal love for each of us. God may correct our behavior, but does not punish it with discordant or diseased conditions. We also need to remind ourselves, daily, that the invisible presence and all-power of God is present with us everywhere in creation, so that we may rely upon our divine, spiritual circumstances, in the face of every material threat. If we don't do this, we let the material sense of day take us wherever it will. For example, the biblical story of Daniel gives a clear report on how one's faith can grow to the point of a great deliverance. It was written of Daniel, that he had the habit of turning to God, three times a day. When the king signed a decree to throw Daniel into the lions' den, the Bible says, "Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." (Daniel 6:10). When the king came to check on Daniel's night with the lions, Daniel said, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." (Daniel 6:22). Clearly, the daily habit of turning to God's presence and power built up a faith that cleared Daniel's consciousness of all fear, at a time when others of us would have been terrified! Realization of the divine Kingdom, and the power of God's everlasting justice, brought the spiritual truth of being into the material dream of existence for Daniel. In this same, spiritual realization, Christ Jesus and his disciples were able to demonstrate the real circumstance of wholeness and health in God's invisible kingdom, when healing all diseases among the people who came to them for healing. Whatever the threatening material scene before our eyes, faith in the invisible, loving harmony of God's creation can turn the human situation aside, letting the sunlight of truth come forth, even into what seems to be material realities. Sometimes, we're the ones at fault in a situation; but God's harmony corrects even the negative part we may have played. It does take mental effort to clear our consciousness of fear, in favor of believing in the invisible presence of God's control over all. But deliverance comes with a reason: that reason is that the Kingdom of God has never left us, and the material sense of creation is an error. We're still in the spiritual kingdom, wherever else we believe ourselves to be; so a change in consciousness can change physical appearances for the better. We are the children of Spirit, not children of the flesh. Spirit is all-in-all to us. This means that, whatever or whomever we need in this human level of thought is already with us in spiritual reality. We lack no one and no thing. Spirit has already given to each of us the entire, invisible Kingdom of God. We already have every right concept, and the ability to manifest it in the human experience. We already have the conscious awareness (within our universal Christ Consciousness) of all identities in creation, and the ability to come into contact with them. So, whenever we remember to turn to our Christ Self within, the divine Consciousness comes forth to lead us, call us, or show us, whatever or whomever we can't find by our false, mortal sense of selves. The Christ Self within becomes "…the way, the truth, and the life:" (John 14: 6) in the seemingly material realm—simply because we've been living only within the spiritual realm, all along.
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