Freedom from fear of disease

THERE are men and women who have good health, but they don't fully enjoy it for fear of succumbing to some disease. Dreading physical disability is no way to go through life. And it is needless. The Bible speaks of the all-power of God, Spirit. It tells of men and women through the ages who have proved God's uplifting and protective power. One of the many passages in the Scriptures that offer a way out of worry is this one from Psalms: ``In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.''1

To overcome fear is not to ignore disease but to undermine its very foundation. Many are mastering fear and the discord associated with it through applying the liberating, strengthening, spiritual truth found in Christ Jesus' teachings and works. The Way-shower understood fully the inseparability of man from God. He knew that man is God's child, eternally safe in Him. Discerning something of our real being as God's spiritual image, and expressing the purity that characterizes that being, we can come to feel the assurance of His care. We can prove for ourselves that true immunity from disease and abiding peace of mind are found in the consciousness of God's omnipresence and perfect control.

In the words of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, ``The sweet, sacred sense and permanence of man's unity with his Maker, in Science, illumines our present existence with the ever-presence and power of God, good.''2

Man, as God has actually created him, is the likeness of Spirit, not a fleshly mortal at the mercy of whatever disease happens to be prevalent, not helpless before it. God's child can never, even for an instant, be deprived of his Father-Mother God's care, never be robbed of his God-provided spiritual well-being.

Everyone has the right to live without fear of becoming ill. Yet Jesus emphasized the effect of what we entertain in thought. He said: ``Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.... Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart.''3

Understanding that thought affects every aspect of daily life, we realize the necessity of purifying our thoughts, of bringing them into harmony with the spiritual, perfect model of man as created by God. Sickness, incapacity, suffering, are not the immovable, objective realities they seem to be but are false states of thought that can be healed through prayer.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mrs. Eddy writes: ``Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them.'' And she says on the next page, ``Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good.''4

Because you and I are actually the offspring of infinite, harmonious Spirit, and we include only those qualities Spirit imparts -- health, joy, peace, dominion -- the suffering and fear that may seem so challenging have no genuine power over us. They are misconceptions, false human beliefs, not actual, God-created conditions. And being misconceptions, they can be corrected, through prayer, with the truth of man's inseparable relationship to God, of his uninterruptible well-being as God's own likeness.

The Old Testament counsels us, ``Be not afraid of sudden fear....''5 No person needs to go through life afraid that he will be overpowered by suffering. The determining factor in each one's well-being is what he understands of his unity with God. Equipped with the understanding of God's supreme government of all His creation and man's uninvadable wholeness as His beloved child, we can gain mastery over fear of disease.

1Psalms 56:4. 2Miscellaneous Writings, p. 196. 3Matthew 15: 11, 18. 4Science and Health, pp. 392-393. 5Proverbs 3:25.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. Psalms 34:4