O Lord, You have searched me and known me. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.
“When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19), the Bible tells us. The war in Ukraine has captured the attention of people around the world. The spectacle of a massive military force invading a sovereign nation without provocation, meeting fierce resistance, and now plotting a bigger, more destructive offence, has many people wondering what can be done to protect the lives of all caught in this conflict and restore a just peace to that part of the world.
We can support such progress by understanding that there’s a spiritual basis for staying safe when faced with a flood of aggression and oppression. continue reading
In this article Even shares his prayers and the proven spiritual truths that he affirmed in order to bring a sense of peace.
Throughout her life, Mary Baker Eddy, the Founder of Christian Science, lived in an area of the United States prone to climatic extremes. Having grown up on a farm, she was certainly aware of the impact that weather conditions could have on people’s economic and physical well-being. And in teaching Christian Science, she identified weather forces as subordinate to God.
Irving Tomlinson was a student of Eddy and worked on her staff for a number of years. He described her approach to the weather this way:
Mrs. Eddy taught us that weather conditions are not beyond God’s control, and that they can be corrected through right prayer. She made it clear that Christian Scientists are not to attempt to control or govern the weather. We should know that God governs the weather and no other influence can be brought to bear on it. She said we are to be particularly watchful to guard against any disastrous effects of storms.
Eddy’s correspondence and other writings indicate that she specified violent weather elements in particular as requiring ongoing prayerful attention. …
Clara Knox McKee was Eddy’s personal maid in 1906 and 1907. She recounted an experience that helps to illustrate further the distinction Eddy made between attempting to control the weather and holding it as a subjective state of human consciousness:
One day Mrs. Eddy called her students into her study and pointed to a very black cloud, shaped like a cornucopia, coming toward the house in direct line with her front study window. She asked each one to go to a window and face it, and to realize that there were no destructive elements in God’s creation. While the cyclone came whirling straight toward Pleasant View, before it reached within a mile or so, it parted and went around Concord and into the mountains, doing very little damage in our neighborhood. …
Mary Baker Eddy’s convictions regarding God, prayer, weather, and climate grew out of her Christianity. As a student of the Bible, she read in the Hebrew Scriptures accounts of prophetic appeals to God in times of drought. She knew well the Gospel stories of Jesus Christ stilling a storm on the Sea of Galilee. Unlike some others, however, Eddy came to believe that these incidents were neither miracles nor interruptions of the natural order. Instead, she classified them as demonstrations of divine law, which overruled what she identified as the limitations associated with laws of nature.
These statements are from an answer compiled by the researchers at the Mary Baker Eddy Library (menu option: Questions). The complete answer to the question: What did Mary Baker Eddy say about the weather? can be read here:
This recording is of the readings on the topic: Thy Presence Ever Goes with Me
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I love Thy way of freedom, Lord, To serve Thee is my choice, In Thy clear light of Truth I rise And, listening for Thy voice, I hear Thy promise old and new, That bids all fear to cease: My presence still shall go with thee And I will give thee peace.
(Hymn 136 from the Christian Science Hymnal – words by Violet Hay)
I look to Thee in every need, And never look in vain; I feel Thy touch, eternal Love, And all is well again: The thought of Thee is mightier far Than sin and pain and sorrow are.
Thy calmness bends serene above, My restlessness to still; Around me flows Thy quickening life To nerve my faltering will: Thy presence fills my solitude; Thy providence turns all to good.
Embosomed deep in Thy dear love, Held in Thy law, I stand: Thy hand in all things I behold, And all things in Thy hand. Thou leadest me by unsought ways, Thou turn’st my mourning into praise.
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Hymn 134 from the Christian Science Hymnal words by Samuel Longfellow.
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. (The Bible – Isaiah 41: 10)
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Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (The Bible – Proverbs 3: 5, 6)
A Daily Lift by Ethel A Baker, a Christian Science Practitioner and Teacher
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In this brief podcast Ethel shares her prayers for her community after a school shooting and how as she listened to the inspirations that came she was able to protect the neighbourhood children from potential danger.
This recording is of the readings on the topic: Fear Not – for I am with you.
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Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.