Running the gantlet
It's not likely to happen now in the old-fashioned way. But less literally, the gantlet line is still sometimes a threat one faces from critical bystanders or in corporate board rooms. An employee of, say, an industrial manufacturer warns of a faulty product design that could be dangerous to the customers' safety. Is the warning heeded? Often. But occasionally the problem is covered up, and the employee is put through something of a modern-day gantlet line, ending up ostracized and out of a job.
There's got to be a way to pass through those attacks that come at us because of the good we're aiming to do. If you feel you've been "clobbered" for trying to help, there's a Bible statement just for you: Your life is hid with Christ in God."n1 This is a truth to stick with until you really understand it as true for you. It'll do more than throw up a smoke screen. It'll actually take you safely out of range. It'll lift you to a new level where you can keep forwarding the good you do without fear of harm to you or the good.
The Christ is the power of God, which Jesus lived so fully. To even begin to know that you are "hid with Christ in God" is to understand something of the strength of Love. And this understanding leads to more Christly living, with the protection that implies. It identifies you with the same timeless power that saved Jesus when he was under attack.
n1 Colossians 3:3.
Remember the account of how the people tried to throw Christ Jesus off a cliff because of things he'd said? It concludes, "He passing through the midst of them went his way."n2 No retaliation on his part. No cynicism or self-pitying martyrdom. And more -- no harm to him from their hatred. He could walk right through them untouched. Jesus' ability to pass through the mob hinged on his identification with the Christ, with man's true selfhood as God made him -- intelligent, indestructible, spiritual. That something we can understand today.
n2 Luke 4:30.
There are basic reasons you can expect safety. God is Love. Love is here. You dwell in Love. You are in reality Love's very expression, Love's immortal image. Consciously dwell in Love, and you will be in a safe place. As your concept of yourself grows less like the mortal concept and more like the Christly truth of man, attackers simply can't find you. Just as they couldn't find Christ Jesus when he walked through the angry mod. Mary Baker Eddy n3 once wrote, "The pioneer of something new under the sun is never hit: he cannot be; the opinions of people fly too high or too low."n4
n3 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
n4 Christian Healing,m p. 6.
Sometimes at night an animal is apparently so hypnotized by headlights coming down the road that it stands right where it will be hit. Don't let yourself be so hypnotized by an attack that, by reacting to it, you move right into the line of fire. Keep companioning with the Christ; keep consciously dwelling in Love.
Choose spiritual understanding and love. They'll take care of you. They'll bless the very individuals trying to bring you down, because, if you're honest about it, if you see that in your true being you dwell in Love, you'll also see that they do too. As you get a more Christlike concept of yourself, you'll also get a more Christlike concept of everyone.
In an article entitled "Love Your Enemies," Mrs. Eddy raises a question more extreme than what we're considering here. Still, the question and her answer relate to this discussion. "If one's life were attacked, and one could save it only in accordance with common law, by taking another's, would one sooner give up his own? We must love our enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby we love our friends; must even try not to expose their faults, but to do them good whenever opportunity occurs."n5
n5 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 11.
So, love should set the tone of our response.Along with alertly understanding ourselves as "hid with Christ in God," it will go far toward keeping us safe in any gantlet-like situation. Perhaps most important of all, loving with more and still more Christly love, will ensure that wem never put anyone elsem through a modern-day gantlet line. DAILY BIBLE VERSE He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; . . . he shall dwell on high. Isaiah 33:15, 16