A Plan for All Seasons
Another equinox this week! Is it autumn or spring thats just arrived for you? Are long cold winter nights just around the corner? Or are you heading for long hot afternoons on Bondi Beach in Sydney?
While some readers may be feeling sad that theyll soon be watching the leaves detach themselves from blazing red maples in the woods of Vermont, others may be anticipating a sweet renewal at the sight of daffodils opening in the spring sunshine beside Zoo Lake in Johannesburg. Some will be looking forward to a warm Christmas in Harare. Others cant wait to see the colored lights twinkle beside the ice rink at Rockefeller Center in New York. Then, there are people who have lived in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres and, invigorated by memory, joyfully anticipate a sort of double equinox.
But you know, every season has a luster of its own when we discover its not the calendar or the weather that controls our lives. Its our understanding of God. He is the creator of a universe in which the seasons mark a supremely natural unfolding of His goodness. The Psalmist declared, The earth is the Lords, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein (Ps. 24:1).
The Lords Prayer includes this invocation: Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10). This is interpreted by Mary Baker Eddy, who founded this newspaper, in these words: Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Pg. 17).
This leaves us in no doubt about our starting point. God, divine Mind, is supreme over all. Christ Jesus addressed God as Lord of heaven and earth (Luke 10:21). And so He is. Always has been. Always will be. There is no other power or impulsion. God is our Maker, controller, and preserver.
Many people theoretically admit this truth, and may have a certain amount of faith in it. But to others this is fundamental in all their thinking. It is the truth upon which an unwavering faith is based, and which is demonstrable in the overcoming of all manner of evil.
It would be impossible to estimate the protective value of being convinced of the allness and omnipotence of God, of good itself. In His perfectly ordered universe, we need never fear sudden, harmful invasions from hostile, uncontrolled sources no extremes of temperature, no droughts, no floods, no freeze-ups, no dormant period. Gods plan for us does not change with the weather, because God does not change.
The Christian Science textbook assures the reader of what understanding Gods government means: The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist will find that these changes cannot affect his crops.... The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed (Science and Health, Pg. 125).
How, then, can we share in this dominion? Find freedom from any anxiety that seasonal changes might bring more discomfort than natural beauty into our experience? By understanding that this dominion is part of Gods plan for us; by affirming in daily prayer that God-governed thinking must result in God-governed environments and lives. We can exercise our spiritual dominion in recognizing that God, infinite good, is All, and that any influence or power apart from God is nothing.
Dominion comes to us from God alone, and is the effect of His will His caring plan in operation. It is a quality of God manifested by you and by me as His direct expression. It is not something we must wait for, like a change in the weather. It can be found here and now. As many as do receive a knowledge of God through Science, will have power to reflect His power, in proof of mans dominion over all the earth (Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings, Pg. 183).
Gods plan for us is consistently fulfilling, abounding with opportunities for moral and spiritual growth. It is no magic formula. No carefully devised insurance policy. It is a manifestation of His law. A reliable, proven plan for all seasons.
