Overcome fear, destroy illness

Illness is well known to produce fear. Less well known but, I’ve found, vitally important to understand is the reverse: that fear breeds illness.

In this regard, I’ve been encouraged by many assurances in the Bible that we need not fear. And “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, a devout student of the Bible and the discoverer of Christian Science, has helped me understand that disease has a mental cause and its cure can come through prayer. For example, in regard to fear, it states: “Fear is the fountain of sickness, and you master fear and sin through divine Mind; hence it is through divine Mind that you overcome disease” (pp. 391-392).

Christian Science, based on the teachings of Jesus, explains that divine Mind is a synonym for God, the one source and substance of all real being, intelligence, and wisdom. This divine consciousness, which is infinite and wholly good, does not include disease. The belief that life is in matter makes disease seem powerful and frightening. But when we see disease as having no place in God and look to our divine Maker for the truth about health, this results in healing.

“Resist the temptation to believe in matter as intelligent, as having sensation or power,” Science and Health instructs. It also says, “When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown” (pp. 218-219).

Acknowledging our real being as the spiritual, error-free image of divine Mind is like switching on a light in our thought. The darkness of fear is replaced with the light of Christ, Truth‚ and with a clearer understanding of the presence of God, Love. This understanding overcomes fear, and when fear is gone, the body responds with normalcy.

Here’s an example. One day a woman called a Christian Science practitioner. She was in tears. She described a painful heart problem and said she believed she was dying.

The practitioner sensed her great fear and quickly reassured her that she could never be outside God’s love and care. Underlying this was the spiritual fact that God sees us as the beautiful, pure idea of infinite Mind, without a single imperfection. Maladies of any type are lies about our true, spiritual nature. As the Bible assures us, “God is the strength of [our] heart” (Psalms 73:26), and “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: ... I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee” (Isaiah 41:10).

The woman said in a stronger voice, “I feel a bit better.” The practitioner suggested she study Psalms 91 and 23, and the Lord’s Prayer – all very helpful in allaying fear.

When the woman called back, she said she was greatly comforted, her body had returned to normal, and she felt healed. She told him later that she even went swimming the next day.

So how did the healing actually occur? The woman gained a new view of God and of herself as God’s spiritual, flawless, beloved child; and this understanding removed her fear.

We can each gain this new view, a sense of our innate purity, innocence, and well-being as the spiritual idea of God. As we surrender a materially based perception of our identity for a higher and holier understanding of our true nature, refuse to entertain fear, and realize the presence and power of God, we pull the props out from under the seeming power of illness, and healing occurs.

Science and Health instructs the reader to “look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. 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” (p. 261).

Over the past 150 years, many people have been healed through Christian Science. The Monitor’s sister publications contain testimonies from some of them. These include healings of dreaded diseases such as cancer, heart trouble, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, to name a few (see JSH-Online.com). A loving God never created such offenses against humanity, and does not sustain them – and every person has the right to rebel against them.

Illness has no divine law or cause supporting it. God is the only legitimate cause, and all that God made is good. Understanding this enables us to overcome dread, and so undermine and destroy illness.

Adapted from an article published in the July 2017 issue of The Christian Science Journal.