Safe amid the storm
A Christian Science perspective: Finding shelter and safety during a frightening storm.
Amid dangerous weather people sometimes wonder if God is with them, and if so, will He help?
The answer to that question was illustrated late one night when I was caught in a horrible storm while driving on a dark, rural road as I returned home from work. As lightning struck, electric lines fell along my path and objects were hurled around me by high winds. There was no apparent safe place to stop, so I continued on. Immensely afraid, I reached out in prayer for God’s help.
Through my study of the Bible I’ve come to understand that “God is love” (I John 4:8) and that as such, God indeed cares for all that He creates. In fact, divine Love is all good – a saving force and “a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). The Psalmist explained the constancy of God’s availability and protection for anyone needing help when he depicted God as saying: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him” (Psalms 91:15).
God as the loving creator of all, then, is not in destructive, material forces: “not in the wind ... not in the earthquake ... not in the fire” as the prophet Elijah discerned (I Kings 19:11, 12). Such forces have no place in the allness of divine Love, in the omnipotence of God who Christ Jesus referred to as Spirit (John 4:24). The “still small voice” that Elijah heard after recognizing that God is not in any destructive force might be thought of as the influence of ever-present Spirit – the voice of Truth, which speaks to us of God’s continuous care. It speaks to us, through our spiritual sense, as all-pervading good in the very place where evil seems to be threatening.
When I reached out in prayer during that awful storm, I heard that “still small voice” – not audibly but rather as a comforting idea. It directed me to look away from the drama of the storm to the spiritual reality, recognizing God as having all real power, which is creative, not destructive. Accepting this, I was no longer afraid, and I felt a natural calm, quietly confident in divine Love’s ever-presence, power, and protection. Later during the drive, I followed an intuition to take a different route part of the way. It was less traveled, but I discovered that it was safer because there were no electric lines or trees close to the road that could fall.
I reached home safely and continued praying. I recall being grateful that others were likely praying, too, and grateful that God answers prayer. I was glad to learn from news reports the next day that no one was hurt in the storm.
So how was it that one minute I was overwhelmed by fear in the face of destruction, but that soon the fear was gone and was replaced with a quiet surety that I was safe amid the storm? Instead of evaluating the situation simply by what the physical senses were telling me, I had allowed my inherent spiritual sense to inform me that God’s presence and might are the actual and only true authority and power. This was an illustration to me of what the discoverer of the Science of Christ, Mary Baker Eddy, meant when she wrote, “No evidence before the material senses can close my eyes to the scientific proof that God, good, is supreme” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 277).
Just as the sun burns off a morning mist, so it is that the power of Christ – the healing truth that Jesus demonstrated – disperses fear to reveal the spiritual reality that is always at hand. As we realize that good alone is God’s will and natural power, we begin to see and experience more evidence of divine Love’s care and protection of all He creates.