To be calm
THE briefest unbiased glance at the four Gospels of the New Testament shows that Christ Jesus' thought was tranquil. Not that calm was always around him. On the contrary, he seemed to be a center of disturbances that included a treacherous disciple, malicious foes, and illnesses that turned others frantic. How could Jesus possibly remain calm? Perhaps his experience in Gethsemane can help answer that question. He prayed, ``Not my will, but thine, be done.''1
Don't pressure and rushing derive at least in part from human will? What, then, does it mean to do God's will rather than our own? It means to be humbly receptive to His guidance and perfect government and to accept that direction so sincerely that we obey Him in our thoughts and lives.
One reason this is not always easy is that we are not always sure we know God. Yet we can learn from the Bible that He is infinite, perfect, supreme good. We come to see, through the Scriptures, that He is divine Life itself and boundless Love, and that He is the creator of all that truly exists, which He makes to express His own nature. The Bible teaches us that God is Spirit and that His highest creation is man, His image and likeness. In our true selfhood you and I are now that man. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ``All that is made is the work of God, and all is good.''2
God's will is to cause all good, and His will is done. In His spiritual universe, which is the ultimate and genuine reality of existence, there is nothing unlike Him, no evil cause or effect to oppose the divine will.
Of course, this does not appear to be the case. Much of the time what we see in the world around us seems to overshadow our innate spiritual sense of life. Foolishness, incompetence, conflict, accident, disease, and so forth, appear to rule. We believe we have to rush to do the good we think we have outlined or to prevent what we define as evil.
Yet through even a touch of the Christly humility Jesus showed in Gethsemane we can begin to find freedom from the rush of materiality. We can yield to spiritual truth and accept God and His ideal creation as all, as the genuine reality. Earlier in his ministry, Jesus said: ``Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.''3
The Christ, which Jesus expressed so completely, is the universal, healing Truth, speaking to our consciousness. As the sun burns off a fog, Christ dissolves the false beliefs of mortals and reveals the order, beauty, and health of God's perfect creation.
Tranquillity is not a secret. It is not mystical. It is a sublime result of what Paul refers to as ``the mystery of Christ.''4 It's a product of the natural, God-given spiritual sense that sees beyond material knowledge and touches the hem of divine reality. It's the result of deeply felt prayer, prayer that doesn't avoid the facts of existence but discerns them. Each of us has the privilege, through prayer, of coming to feel that spiritual calm which is inherent in man, God's image.
1Luke 22:42. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 521. 3Matthew 11:28-30. 4Colossians 4:3. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: becuase he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord for ever.