How can we feel safe?

“When I have kids one day,” my 20-something son said to me, “how will I ever feel safe dropping them off at school when it seems as if every school is vulnerable to gun violence?”

What he and many others are yearning for, I realized, is relief from anxious concern that the world is an unsafe place and that there appears to be nothing we can do about it. This climate of fear is so prevalent that even a young man sitting on the porch in a quiet neighborhood in the United States was struggling with it.

While laws and other measures are typical in a civilized society seeking to protect its citizens, it’s worth asking whether these measures alone will ever be enough to reassure us completely and silence our fears. Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered a timeless law of divine care that has proved effective in freeing people from fear and protecting them from danger, posed a similar question in her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “Are material means the only refuge from fatal chances? Is there no divine permission to conquer discord of every kind with harmony, with Truth and Love?” (p. 394).

Feeling safe and being protected from danger are dependent on something that is always right at hand: consciousness of the fact that we are the children of God and that our ever-present divine Parent is continually safeguarding each of us. God, as Spirit, is everywhere and all around us, and we are never outside of Spirit. We dwell in the permanent protecting embrace of the divine Father-Mother, whose infinite wisdom guides us intelligently and whose perfect love blankets each one in safety.

Safety is included in what we are as God’s spiritual offspring. It is a permanent element of our being rather than an externally determined condition. As we gain this spiritual understanding, not only do we feel protected and calm ourselves but our spiritual sense of God’s safeguarding of His children embraces others as well.

The practical impact of this is illustrated in the Bible’s epic story of Moses. As Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, there seemed to be no end to the threats to their lives. Their fears certainly appeared justified – imagine being chased by the entire Egyptian army or facing the possibility of running out of food and water.

Yet Moses was so clear that God is the great I AM – the true Life and Mind of His children and the all-powerful Love guiding them, as Christian Science explains – that they experienced God’s protecting presence in many ways. The Israelites’ eyes were opened to supply for their needs and guidance and safe passage to their destination. God’s sustaining, safeguarding presence was shown to be a constant.

What was needed was a shift in thought – seeing beyond fear to God’s care and trusting it. The same is needed today. When confronted with the clamor of fear, we can turn to the spiritual fact that God’s protecting power is at hand.

Several years ago, our family arrived at the airport on the same day that a terrorist plot had been uncovered and thwarted. Because we were flying on a plane operated by the same airline at the same airport where the incident took place, news media personnel surrounded our family. They appeared to be looking for a sound bite about airline travel no longer being safe.

But prayer had assured me that we could feel peaceful about and comfortable with our travel plans. I calmly explained that we loved to travel and shared some of the ideas I’d been praying with. Family members made it clear that they were grateful for the peaceful, joyous outlook that enabled us all to feel safe proceeding with the flight.

While there are many things in the world today that could make us suspicious or fearful, an insistent focus on these potential dangers can lead us into a state of panic and despair where it is much harder to live our lives with the dominion and joy that are inherently ours. We, as individuals, have an opportunity to help neutralize this mental climate of fear through our own insistence on what is spiritually true. The real constant, throughout all time, is the presence and power of God, divine Life and Love, lighting our path and making our steps secure.

We’re not created by God to be fragile or vulnerable, but safe, joyful, and purposeful. With the certainty that our loving Parent is forever caring for us, we can disengage from the fears that would pull us into panic and take a firm stand on the bedrock of the proven truth that we are inherently safe, and so is everyone else.

Adapted from an article published in the Aug. 21, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.