Innocence outshines evil

So much of the world is calling out for the protection of the innocent. Recently our branch church has been focusing our prayers on supporting children and childlikeness in our community. This statement has been a constant companion to our prayers: “Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” pp. 323-324).

Our church members regularly take time to stay alert to what is happening in our immediate and statewide community and take up issues prayerfully that need healing. Reports of sex trafficking in our state woke us up to the need for prayer.

We decided to begin by deepening our understanding of innocence. Innocence is born of the purity of God – divine Truth and Love – who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and ever active. As our Father-Mother God’s children, made in Her image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26), we are all inherently spiritual, pure, and innocent. Our innocence, coming from God, is sacred, unadulterated, and incapable of being diminished. What is sacred is never lost, as it is sustained by the law of divine Life, Truth, and Love – which governs all creation.

Purity of thought is true power, radiating with God’s full-force spiritual light. There is no fragmentary, weakened, variable light here, just as there are no fragmentary, vulnerable, or variable creations of God.

It may be challenging to see beyond heinous actions or even imagine how there could be any kind of resolution to trafficking. But evil is not sustainable. It will end. And practicing Christian Science – consciously abiding by the law of Love – which is sustainable, can accelerate progress toward that goal.

However deep-seated offenses against children may seem to be, it’s the hope, empathy, and innocence that are the reverse of these evils that are permanently true about them and all of us. These qualities have the spiritual substance that outshines and dismantles evil, while protecting and sustaining everyone.

This line from the Lord’s Prayer given by Jesus, with its spiritual interpretation from Science and Health, became part of the steady prayers of our church members: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; / And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death” (p. 17).

This was prayer to see that none of God’s children can be lured into compromising situations, nor can God’s children be tempted to do harm. God’s love delivers the innocent and turns the perpetrator’s heart to repentance.

Just as we were committing to these ideas, two church members heard that their friend had gone missing. This is an individual who could have been vulnerable to strangers’ ill intentions. They immediately reached out to the individual’s family.

Buoyed by the prayer work the church had already been doing, these two members affirmed that their friend’s God-given innocence was their protection. They also saw that the same inherent innocence was actually in anyone wanting to do harm, knowing that that recognition would help them resist such temptation. They also prayed to know that those searching for their missing friend had the insight and intuition they needed.

Truth and Love’s divine influence, the saving Christ, is ever present and active in human consciousness (see Science and Health, p. xi), revealing the spiritual laws governing each of us. These include the law of Love, the law of harmony, and the law of progress. Our Father-Mother God knows and embraces each of Her cherished children, and we are always in God’s presence. Consistently affirming and becoming conscious of these truths, naturally repels any incorrect, dark thoughts – just as light destroys darkness.

A short time later, much to everyone’s relief and gratitude, this friend was found and returned home again, despite having fallen into a potentially dangerous situation.

This was a powerful and enduring lesson on the need for continuing vigilance in asserting the power of innocence. “Innocence and Truth overcome guilt and error” (Science and Health, p. 568). Just think, all that isn’t good or Godlike – including hypocrisy, guilt, and lust – is wiped out by innocence.

We can continually pray to affirm and accept that we each are inherently and permanently innocent. Doing so enables us to detect and thoroughly annihilate whatever is ungodlike in consciousness. As we see the innocence in ourselves in this way, we are more able to see the innocence in others – even those we have seen as intractable enemies. This prayer breaks down fear, and God opens our eyes to see what is needed to protect the innocent and bring them safely home.