Dominion over accidents

A few years ago, a study was conducted among a group of accident victims. It showed that in 80 to 90 percent of the cases under consideration, the people were worried about something before the accident occurred. The inference was that if one were able to control such negative thoughts, perhaps mishaps themselves might be avoided.

The relationship of thought to experience is evident. But can meaningful safety be found through probing and picking at the human mind?

The profound, compassionate teachings of Christianity provide us with a deeper, lasting solution - a totally spiritual one. Meaningful dominion over accidents and the thoughts that underlie them can be achieved only through spiritual means.

The Scriptures say, ''The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.'' The New English Bible translates this verse, ''It is the Lord who directs a man's steps, he holds him firm and watches over his path.''n1

n1 Psalms 37:23.

This isn't an abstraction. It's a powerful, provable statement of truth; an affirmation of spiritual law; a concept to be loved, trusted, accepted with conviction that comes from a growing understanding of the nature of God and man.

God is forever infinite, unrestricted, self-expressive good, and He made all that was made. In reality, then, creation is perfect, the outcome of God. The picture of life reported by the five senses is a false, limited view of what God has made. In His perfect creation, there is no room for a single unstable, destructive element. Man, God's image, is wholly spiritual, perpetually safe, inseparable from his Maker.

According to the Bible, God is Love. Love not only creates but, in a manner of speaking, it executes a perpetual maintenance program over what it has made. Nothing is excluded from God's care.

We run into trouble when we fallaciously believe that this reality can be reversed; that God can be finite and limited; that man is separated from his Maker, a mortal subject to misfortune and chance. From this faulty premise many of us are brought up to actually respect and stand in awe of chance. Life itself is regarded as a great big gamble. There is a chance that we might be happy and successful, but there is an equal and opposite chance that we won't. We might be healthy, but then again we might not. This outlook is a veritable breeding ground for mishaps - so with the power and authority of the Almighty, reject this deception!

God's allness and goodness are a sure thing; therefore we can be constant victors over the claims of evil. The realization of God's supremacy enables us to overcome a sense of chance existence. It enables us to find safety.

To Christ Jesus, God's love was a dependable, invariable reality - a fact of life. Jesus told his disciples, who were rejoicing over their proved ability to heal in his name, ''Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.''n2 Just as instability and accident are impossible to God, they are equally impossible to man, the expressed idea of God.

n2 Luke 10:19

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: ''Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony.''n3

n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 424.

The persistent acknowledging of this truth will result in increased dominion over accidents for ourselves and others. DAILY BIBLE VERSE The Lord shall by thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken. Proverbs 3:26