Faith can sing

THERE are times in our lives when our days move along steadily and smoothly. With unselfishness and watchfulness we are able to surmount small irritations and setbacks. We are full of gratitude for God's care of us, and we share the harmony we feel. However, there are also times when, like a sudden storm in summer, the clouds loom on the horizon and the winds blow. Lightning stabs of fear threaten our stability, and mortality thunders hopelessness. At times like this, we may reach for supports that we have taken for granted in the sunshine. And support is there. God's tender presence and His powerful law of good are always with us.

The Bible contains numerous accounts of divine deliverance. Its theme song is trust in supreme intelligence, in the one God who has made man and who governs him wisely. Through reading the Scriptures, we come to the conclusion that we can bring ourselves in line with His supreme power and wisdom by worshiping the one God -- by worshiping Spirit alone -- in thought and action. This includes exercising the God-derived qualities illustrated in the Bible, such as trust, obedience, honesty, tenderness, spiritual strength, joy. It includes humbly yielding to the divine will.

The Bible instructs, ``Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.''1 Those who have acquainted themselves most closely with God can confidently say that they are never truly separated from Him, though they may at times have felt a sense of separation. They recognize their sonship with God as His child, His very image. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ``Man is, and forever has been, God's reflection.''2

To the degree that we humbly surrender the false concept of a selfhood apart from God, of a fleshly mortal floating in some void of vulnerability; and to the degree that we identify ourselves spiritually, expressing the purity and love that characterize our true being -- to that degree we can say to the claims of evil, ``You have no power over me.''

God is All-in-all, which we can learn from the Bible. And as His offspring we are indeed within His allness. Regardless of circumstances, our true and only being, created by Him, is under His care and subject to His law of good. This is our basis of faith, and it has been proved to be a sound basis in the lives of men and women from earliest Bible times to the present day.

When Paul and Silas were thrown into prison for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, what did they do? They sang hymns of praise to God. They couldn't entertain dismay and fear at the same time that they were rejoicing in God's power. They knew that their salvation lay in the one almighty God and His Christ, and so their faith was not outweighed by fear. As a result they were delivered, and the jailer and his whole family felt the power of this law of good and were baptized.3

Mrs. Eddy tells us, ``Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.''4 Truly we aren't helpless victims of conflicting forces, feeble yearners for some far-off savior. We are actually, now, sons and daughters of the King, of our heavenly Parent, who is not only above all mortal powers and principalities but is actually the only power.

What a relief it is to know that singing in our hearts to God is always justified, no matter what the threat. It is a defiant joy that is based on the spiritual fact that God is infinitely bigger than the problem; that He is ever-present Love; that He is, in fact, All-in-all.

1Job 22:21. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 471. 3Acts 16:16-40. 4Science and Health, p. 261.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them....thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous. Psalms 5:11,12