His care is with us...turn on TRUST and see

Having fear and trust issues isn’t fun.  Having power issues is self-induced bondage.  Feeling responsible for everyone’s well being can be taxing.  Living life as if everything depends on one person, YOU, can make us all feel frustrated, burdened, and resentful. Ever feel like that you’re the parent of everybody?  Then who’s taking care of you? It can be like holding onto a tiger’s tail for dear life.  Not knowing how to let go of its tail or when you’ll be eaten by it can make life pretty miserable.

Once when operating a pipeline painting company I could see that the cash reserves were dwindling. The big job that we were on wasn’t going to be accomplished before I ran out of money.  No money meant no supplies, no payroll, no room and board for the guys on the road. I was sweating the possibilities of real trouble. It was at that time I began my course in Trust.  Through studying the Holy Bible and the Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, my church books, I was learning more and more about God and trust. A God that we can trust no matter what the challenge or circumstance seemed to be.  I started getting a clearer picture of how God is our Parent, a divine perfect Father-Mother, God.  A Parent we can trust, love, and turn to no matter when or for what. By learning to trust in God as our divine Care Giver, as our perfect Parent, I was gaining a little more each day why I should trust in God and not myself.

The outward appearances were frightening.  I had employees and their families depending on ME.  I could not have people work as hard as our guys did and then not pay them. Every time I became afraid or burdened by the heavy responsibility I turned to God in earnest prayer. When the fear of this future lack would fill my thoughts I would turn to God and say, “Father, I cannot wait to see what You have planned.”  I did this often for weeks.  Finally on a payroll day, without the funds, I was in the shower.  Once again the fear bubbled up. The deadline was there, the money wasn’t, and still no answer to how I was going to pay my bills and the employees.  But I stood firm in my prayer that God was taking care of all things and all of us. I stated out loud right there in the shower, “Father, I cannot wait to see HOW YOU are going to do this.”  And I meant it!

After my shower and getting ready for the day, praying every step of the way, I went to the mail box.  Looking at the many pieces of mail I came across an envelope from my insurance company. It looked like there was a check inside. I couldn’t understand why there would be a check from them.  Usually they were one of my biggest bills.  Opening it up out in the drive, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  There was a check for a very a large amount.  Included with the check was a letter explaining that it had come to their attention that they had over charged me the year before.  The amount of the check covered not only payroll for that pay period but all the other bills till we were finished with the job and received payment for it.

How did it come to their attention?  Why would they send me a check?  Usually they just took it off the bill for the next year.  God! His All-knowing, all-expressing, tender care; God does know all and does all, always. God does take care of everything.  God is in all of the details, big and small.  By knowing this and turning to this we all can see His constant care.  

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, states, “Step by step will those who trust Him find that ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.’”¹

Through prayer and listening I had taken each of those fears that had hit me, sometimes hard, and removed them with the simple statement to God that I couldn’t wait to see His answer.  It wasn’t a desperate plea to an unknown God.  It was a prayer stating a fact through renewed knowledge and trust in God as Love.  A statement of fact that He was right there loving us all.

The KEY to this challenge and may others after it was the realization that I am not, we are not, responsible for this person or that problem.  We are not, God is.  It is God’s universe, God’s people, God’s plan, God’s Life.  We’re His beloved children.  Children do not have to come up with the answers.  Children trust, love, learn, watch, and receive.

 “When as little children, we are receptive, become willing to accept the divine Principle and rule of being, as unfolded in divine Science, the interpretation therein will be found to be the Comforter that leadeth into all truth.”²

The words, “the divine Principle and rule of being” reveals a divine Principle and rule that we can always turn to and be healed by.  The Principle that God is All-in-all and the rule that His care is constant lifts us above the scary and burdensome.  We can “become willing to accept” this divine Principle and rule and be free to see the Comforter in action leading us “into all truth”.

His Love is eternal and infinite. His answers are perfect and timely.  His ability is complete and unfailing. God never leaves us, never stops leading us, never stops tending to us.  We are His children…why would any parent, especially the Perfect and Divine Parent ever leave a child untended to, uncared for, left alone?  They wouldn’t and He doesn’t.  We must remember He is always with us and He always is taking care of us.  We have nothing to fear only to enjoy.

“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.”³

Let us turn to Him today and feel His loving presence and constant care.

Gentle hug



1 Science and Health with key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 4
2 Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy page 189 line 3
3 King James Version of the Holy Bible Isaiah 41:10

Agitate? Why not trust?

It is given to us in the King James Version of The Holy Bible, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”¹ 

This trust isn’t blind faith.  It is a trust in the Christ, Truth, that has brought us all out of the challenges we face daily for thousands of years. It is a trust that fills us with joy and anticipation.  It is an understanding that our Lord, God, Love, IS giving to us all the answers, ways, means, and directions that we need. 

Let us be as little children who turn lovingly to the Divine Parent for all. This type of sweet trust frees us from worry, burden, concern, fear, and doubt.  This trust is based upon an understanding of the Divinity’s ability and availability.  It is the knowledge that God is, does, and will always give us all that we need.

The life that we are experiencing at this time is like the childhood story problems in our math classes.  Challenges arise, we react, the problems worsen then we become upset and confused.  But sooner than later we hopefully, and at times tearfully, turn to the One and Only Answer-Giver for help, God. 

The major kinks and upsets arise when we jump into the story problems, trying to fix, figure, fool with all the ends and outs of the complicated challenges from our own limited, lacking understanding. By doing this we get lost, upset, and agitated.  BUT if we quickly turn to our trust in God, rise above the challenges, we can see His resolve so much more quickly.  HOW? By using the divine qualities that He has given to us, such as patience, trust, love, compassion, and  most of the time the key quality, FORGIVENESS. By turning to these wonderful values and characteristics that God has created within us, we can use them to get out of the way.  Our viewpoint harmonizes and the answer that God is giving to us reveals the perfect solution. 

The fastest way for us to get into trouble? It is to trust half heartedly, lean on our limited view points and abilities, and leave God out of the equation.  The most harmonious, smooth, fruitful, fulfilling, healing way, is to trust God with all our heart, love, acceptance, joy and gratitude.  It is to not get in the way with limited opinions and false egotistical beliefs.

To trust God is to say, “I will, I do, I am, and thank You God for Your Love, Your Truth, Your laws of perfection.  Thank You for being the IS, the I AM, and the I Will who always gives perfect harmonious Good.”  To trust God is to understand God’s perfection, willingness, and ability.  As the All-knowing, All-seeing, All-powerful He has the perfect answer to every challenge that comes to us. God cannot help it, for God fills all space with His perfection and goodness.
“The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.”² This type of thinking slows the process of meeting our challenges. By the very denial of God’s healing presence we are stuck to our own limited ways and viewpoints.  It throws us into the pit of confusion, depression, egotism. But God, Love, the All-knowing, is saying to all who are listening, “I AM with you always.  I AM handling this.  Stay the course of calm and watch.”  God never leaves even those who do not believe in His Being.  God fills all space how could He do and be otherwise? Love is here for all to turn to, no matter how long denied.  Love frees mankind from useless false beliefs.  Love loves all, because Love is Love. 

Let us listen to this beautiful promising Proverb.  Let us trust in God joyfully with our whole heart.  Let us not lean on our own lacking understanding, based from faulty fearful standpoints.  But let us go at each challenge in the knowledge that God is handling all, and that perfectly well. God has given to us the ability to be calm, loving, patient, forgiving. God lifts us above all the ‘story problems’ to higher ways and views, His!

Hugs


1 Proverbs 3:5
2 Psalms 14:1   

Win your Goliath battles every day

In I Samuel chapter 4 we find a giant has come to turn King Saul and the men of Israel into the Philistine’s servants.  Saul and his men feared and fought the tactics of this giant, Goliath, for 40 days but were not getting anywhere.  When David, a mere shepherd, was sent to check on his brothers he found the stag mate of fear. So David went to King Saul and told him that he would fight the Philistine’s Goliath.

So relieved and amazed by David’s strength of conviction that he could win over Goliath’s threats, Saul took him up on his offer.  King Saul tried to put the armor of a warrior onto David. He wanted to protect him against the fierce seasoned warrior, Goliath.  But David had to take that kind of armor off.  He hadn’t proved that type of tool.  It hadn’t been his way of fighting.  His battles, with the lion and the bear who had tried to take his lambs away, had been through prayer and trust in God. The courage that went with his kind of battle, and win, came through his love and acceptance of God’s ever-present powerful help.

The symbolic gesture of taking the five smooth stones and sling is one of the most beautiful in the Holy Bible.  David took these tried and true weapons of warfare against all fear.  His courage and understanding came through his knowledge of God.  He knew that he could slay this giant through his trust of who and what God is, the One and Only Power.  The knowledge that God was always with him sustained him through all of his battles.  He knew that he could do battle against anyone and anything with the fierceness of one who runs at the evil instead of running from it.  David went with strong conviction, trust, courage, fearlessness, calm, and determination born through the daily turning to God’s care and Love.  He knew he was always safe with God.

We too can go into our day’s battles with this same kind of trust and knowledge.  The more we battle with the Goliath problems of our day, with the understanding that God is the All Power we win.  God’s Truth about His creation wins over all fear, depression, anxiety, and confusion. He replaces them with courage, a spirit of confidence, calm, and peace, His Love for us all. God’s all-knowing is through His perfect changeless Mind.  Mind’s creation can never be defeated by any suggestion of another power.  Mind knows only of One Power, His.  This Truth frees us from the false claims of ugly conditions, fearful tactics, unfair or violent threats. God is the All and Only, His Life is all there is and that is very Good. We must turn our focus upon What God is doing and turn our thoughts from the upsetting and uncomfortable.  We must turn our trust to God’s Truth and away from the suggestion of another power that can control our lives.  It is a lie.  God’s Good is always the Truth.

The five smooth stones?  These are prayers that keep us safe in the understanding that God is All-in-all.  The all-knowing, all-powerful Good, that protects us through all hardships, is the courage given to us by God, the All-loving, all-caring, tender and true.  The more we pray to see this One and Only Good in our lives we see His freedom as evidence. His ever-presence is always with us. 

Each day is a step closer to understanding that God is everything and that all is well.  Each time we fight the battle holding to the Truth that God is All and is all-harmonious, the perfect expression of God’s creating appears everywhere.  God created this and every day.  We can start living a life of dominion, peace, calm, and trust.  We can start by being obedient to God’s call for us to witness what He is doing and stop trying to do everything from our limited point of view.

Here is one smooth stone of prayer for our day.  Take it, use it, and enjoy its Truth:

“They go in Thy strength, and they speak in Thy name,
With power of Thy promise forth faring,
And during the battle the victory claim, —
Their trust in Thy truth is their daring,
Salvation to all men declaring.”¹

Let us use this stone against any Goliath temptation to fear.  Let us trust in God today and always. Let us claim our victory through the Christ during the battle!  This trust in the Truth is our daring, our salvation to all men declaring.

David didn’t believe that the lion, the bear, or this Goliath had any power to succeed over God’s ever-present Good.  With this knowledge he won the battle over Goliath’s huge threats. With the assurance that God is Good, the only Power, David succeeded over all threats that came at him each and every day.  We can too.



1Christian Science Hymnal No. 204 vs. 3

Waiting patiently? Or WAITING not so patiently?

A position of “holding pattern” teaches us patience.  To most it is one of our least favorite places to be.  Waiting on this or that can stretch the patience.  When we are placed in a waiting situation, that is the time for us to learn that waiting is A-okay.  It is said over and over in The Holy Bible for us to ‘wait’. “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” 1

Just think when we wait for a hotdog in the microwave it takes seconds but the meal…well, it’s a hotdog.  But when we wait for Thanksgiving dinner, there is a much longer wait, but what a wonderful feast we are given.

When we go somewhere far, we rush to the airport to… wait. Instead of being impatient the wait can be sweet, anticipatory, exciting…because we know that it is going to be great.  But sometimes, or a lot of times, when we have to wait, we get antsy, impatient, maybe grumpy (hostile)…why?

Is it because we lack the trust that where we are being lead is going to be Good?  Do we lack the trust in Love, God, that it is going to be Great?  Do we want to know how the All-knowing Mind, God, is going to do it, so we can approve and disapprove it?  As if Good doesn’t know how to be and do Good?

Patience, trusting in Good, Love, the All-knowing Mind, should be the easiest thing to do.  If not then what is needed is less ego, more trust, and an even better understanding of What we’re trusting in…and obediently, courageously WAIT.

“Patience must ‘have her perfect work’.”2

"The present hour allots thy task, For present strength and patience ask; And trust His love whose sure supply Meets all thy need abundantly." 3

When we all learn that what we are waiting on is God’s precious gift of Good, a higher trust in His LOVE, perhaps then we can see that the wait is sweet and worth the patience.

Hugs

• 1 Psalms 27:14
• 2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy page 454 line 24
• 3 Christian Science Hymnal No. 6 vs 3

God is trustworthy...NOTHING is impossible to Him

It is said, “with God nothing shall be impossible.”1

The only way that we can follow this line of thinking is by trusting.  The only way we can trust anything or anyone is by magnifying their trustworthiness.  One would not and could not trust their money to a bank robber. One wouldn’t trust their home to an arsonist.  One wouldn’t trust their children to…you get the point.  So we must see that our trust must be placed in one who is trustable.  The only way we can trust God is to have as much knowledge, understanding and experience with this perfect All-knowing Mind and witness to His guidance in our days, weeks, months and years. 

The only way we can trust that ‘nothing is impossible’ to God is by turning to Him consistently, persistently, through higher and higher experiences.  Each step of the way His abilities, that guide our daily lives, are revealed as we turn to Him for all answers. In this consistency we do learn to trust Him for everything.  Through meekness, childlike trust, and through study of the Bible we see that God is ever-available, ever-present, the Omnipotent (all-powerful) Supreme Being that is here for us all to turn to and trust.  We learn that we must turn to Him for everything, for He is everything that there is.  He fills all-space as Spirit.  He creates all as Soul.  He knows all as Mind.  His gentleness is to be magnified because He is Love.  His Law is the Principle of the universe.  He is Life to all life.  The more we learn this the more we can see, feel, trust, and know that ‘nothing is impossible’ to God, The Truth.

“Trustworthiness is the foundation of enlightened faith.”2

The more we learn, study, grow in our understanding of God who is to be trusted we can see that all-things are possible to Him, there is nothing that He cannot do.  This includes healing us of all complications, all challenges, all issues that have made us feel less than perfect, whole, complete, healthy. God give to us a higher view of what and how He knows us.  We can trust this view.  This perfect view heals us.  There is nothing that God cannot heal.  God, being all-Good, brings to view our all-goodness.  He is ever-present, ever-available, ever-willing.  We can trust Him and His perfect viewpoint of us.  He sees us as we are, perfect.  We can turn to this view and be healed of anything and all.  We can see that ‘WITH God nothing shall be impossible’ to God.

Need healing?  Go to Him who is all Perfect, learn His ways, His perfect view of us all. Trust that His healing presence includes all, even you, me, us. WE can demonstrate that nothing is impossible to God.  We can turn to him and be healed.

"The Hebrew and Greek words often translated belief differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the English verb believe; they have more the significance of faith, understanding, trust, constancy, firmness.  Hence the Scriptures often appear in our common version to approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding." 3

We must get more understanding so that we may exchange our beliefs to trust, doubt to faith, fear to constancy and firmness in the real of What God is...the Truth, Life, Mind, the power, ability, creator, the God who is Love. 

Nothing is impossible to God!  We can understand this and trust Him.

Gentle hugs

1 Luke 1:37
2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy 15:30-31
3 ibid 488:7-13