“Every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights,
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17; King James Bible Version (KJV). “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?
hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance,
and my God.” (Psalm 42:11; (KJV). “Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet ‘tis Truth alone is strong; Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon
the throne be wrong, Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown, Standeth God
within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own.” (Last stanza of poem written in 1844 by James Russell Lowell
and later shown on page 258 of Christian Science 1932 Hymnal.) It’s October again, with its darkening
skies of evening reminding us that Halloween is soon upon us. It’s a fun time for both children and even
some adults, who like wearing scary costumes as they hand out their trick-or-treat
goodies. Halloween even gives children a
time when they can ‘act out’ the bad, pretend
situations and stand up to them, without facing the actual bad things that sometimes
threaten them in real life. In my early teaching years, I noticed
that when small children play out their make-believe fears at Halloween, it is
actually like a practice session in facing their actual fears of the world, but
without the consequences. I observed that
several small, timid children became braver during Halloween play-acting when
they could ‘play out’ the responses to those who tried to bully them. Pondering this, I realized that for
most adults, this material life experience we must contend with is the biggest bully on the block. We must contend with badly-behaved people, bad
working conditions, bad supply issues, and all the other things and situations
we call ‘evil’. And even when the good
times occur, now and then, they don’t last very long because (as the character,
Scarlett O’hara, said in the book, Gone with the Wind) “Tomorrow is another day.” For every day we can experience evils in the
form of wars, plagues, weather disasters, and many other troublesome situations
that pay no attention to whomever they strike. Yet, all these lacks of good do not take God into account. The invisible Presence of divine Spirit (God)
is with us, in and out of every good
and every bad situation we encounter in this material sense of existence. Knowing or realizing the invisible Presence of the Almighty doesn’t mean we won’t encounter the bad behavior, bad weather,
lack of supply, nor bad health now and then; rather, it means that all will
be reversed and healed when we acknowledge God’s infinite presence and ultimate
control over all the spiritual creation that we call ‘heaven’, which exists
right where we believe there to be
our captivity in a material creation,
but is not. God’s perfect and loving spiritual
creation is invisibly present to ‘deliver us from evil’ whenever we turn our
thoughts inward and realize its invisible
presence. Example: Someone was recently offered a very lucrative
job in another state from where the family resided. But their house was not selling, and they needed
it to sell, or they could not move. They
were told that the housing market was just not active in their current location,
and weeks went by without a buyer. They
were worried and fearful that this situation would soon make their move
impossible. Learning of this situation, a friend then
prayed about their harmony that was always at hand by acknowledging God as
their only Authority about their house situation, job situation, and right
place. This friend knew that we are each
in our own ‘orbit’ as established by God, so their house buyers were already ‘out
there’ and known to God. Within less
than a week, an offer was made on their current house and it closed quickly. They also promptly found a new house at their
new location, near the husband’s new job. In the kingdom of God, where we each
reside, (although we don’t recognize the place because we are mesmerized by the
external, material sense of things) the harmonious control by divine Spirit is
the ‘Law of the Land’ so to speak. Time
does not exist here, for Eternity is the only truth of being we’ve ever had, or
will ever have. There is no beginning or
end to our eternal lives, for we have always existed within the God-head of
infinite Spirit. We existed before we
took our finite, material form here and we shall exist when we abandon this
material form. Our true names are known
only to God, until we awaken from this collective dream-state of finite,
material being. Then we shall know (remember)
as we are known. Many good things and many bad things
will occur to us, until we pass through this human experience, where we seem to
be separated from our spiritual Creator and left on our own. But this is the Adam-dream of existence…not
the truth of being; for we have never been separated from our spiritual Source
that we call, God. That is why God can reach us here,
to deliver us from whatever material disharmony or situation we’ve gotten
ourselves into. Material problems are
illusions of the material sense, and that is all. They can change in a ‘Minnesota Minute’ after
we turn to God, and the truth of spiritual existence; for God never brings us
evil. The Bible tells us, “Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (See 1st quotation on page 1). God is our deliverer of every and any
evil this false sense of material being brings upon us. And there is no ‘turning’ with God. That is what
is meant by ‘no shadow of turning’. It means that God does not bless us with
good, and then change Its Mind. What is
good and perfect only blesses…and God holds no grudges nor faults against us,
because the divine Mind knows that we really don’t know, or comprehend, what
we are doing when we do wrong, or destructive, things. The divine Mind knows that these things are
done out of our false, material sense of ourselves and false, material beliefs…not
out of our fully awakened spiritual Selves. Yet, while we still cling to
materiality and do destructive things, we cannot perceive the true creation of
divine Love and Harmony. Our true,
spiritual creation is still here, but we won’t ever discover it through
materiality. It’s what we don’t perceive that is important. We don’t perceive God’s presence, when it has
never left us. We don’t see God’s
blessings, when they are all around us.
We don’t perceive the way out of this trouble, or that disaster, because
we can’t see it materially, nor hear that ‘still small voice of God’
because we are not listening for it. Christ Jesus tried to point the way
back to our heavenly Harmony (called Heaven) when he said, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo
there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 20-21; KJV). Here, the
Master was telling humanity that we would find the spiritual kingdom of God in
our own, inner consciousness, and what we hold within our thoughts about
spiritual reality. This inner
consciousness is often referred to as the ‘Christ Consciousness’ because it is the
universal, spiritual consciousness which is connected to everyone. This Christ
Consciousness is our deeper, spiritual consciousness within that knows God’s
truth of all things. When we are fully
awake spiritually, this spiritual
consciousness is our only mind, or mentality, for old things have passed away
in our spiritual awakening, and we will have no belief in finite material
being, anymore. Living in the light of
all spiritual truth, no ‘shadow of
turning’ can ever trouble us again. | |||||||
