A whole bunch of angels

It had been a long week. Now I was heading home for the weekend, and hoping the five-hour drive would relax me and help me forget about the stress and pressure at the office.

About an hour into the trip, the traffic eased up, and I found the tension beginning to fade. But I still kept going over and over the events of the week. Thoughts began assailing me. Thoughts like "Why wasn't I more careful?" and "I don't fit in" and "Why did he do that?"

And "I'm not right for the job."

Around and around these depressing thoughts flew. I may have been getting closer to home, but analyzing and criticizing myself was not getting me any closer to a solution.

So then I did something I'm glad about. I reversed my direction. No, not on the Interstate. What I mean is, I got closer to God. To the source of all help. I began to take every negative thought that came to mind and offer a kind of prayer instead, that is, a new thought of myself that was in agreement with how God made me. This was not just something I thought up out of the blue. It was something I had learned to do as a method of praying.

My thoughts went something like this: "I am God's reflection, and I care about what is just and good and loving. I am full of caring. I fit in because God has a special place for me that cannot be taken away.

"I am right for my job - because my job is to express God in being good, and to see the good in everyone I work with."

I acknowledged to myself that God was in complete control of the universe, of my life, and even of my office. And I insisted on this.

Then, suddenly, after I had fought off each and every dark suggestion, a remarkable feeling came over me. I felt surrounded by an unconditional love - as if a whole bunch of angels were swirling around me, supporting my good thoughts and giving me strength.

In Mary Baker Eddy's book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" is the assertion that angels are "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality" (pg. 581).

At that moment I felt holy. I felt free from stress and pressure, as if I'd been let out of guilt prison. All the concerns, and the focus on my mistakes and the mistakes of others, totally vanished.

As the book of Matthew in the Bible shows, Jesus was tempted to throw away his complete faith in God and exchange it for material riches and power.

Jesus faced down his temptations and destroyed them, by declaring that he worshiped God (you could say worshiped good) alone. The Bible records that after he had successfully resisted these temptations as often as they came to him, "The devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him" (Matt. 4:11).

If you or I want angels (God's thoughts) to surround us, we can do the same thing - face the foe. But rather than think of the foe as an evil person, or a devil in disguise, or a virus, or a maxed-out credit card that we can't pay up, we are on holy ground when we realize that our foe is essentially mental. It is any thought that comes to us and says we or anyone else are unloved, unworthy, or separated from God's good and loving influence.

There is no power greater than the one good God, who created His children to live in perfect harmony. And to the degree that we hold on to this provable fact, we are free.

Good thoughts are an

impervious armor;

clad therewith you

are completely shielded

from the attacks of

error of every sort.

And not only yourselves

are safe, but all whom

your thoughts rest upon

are thereby benefited.

Mary Baker Eddy

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society