Spirit's Supremacy
THE Mississippi River provided wonderful recreation for our family. On weekends and holidays we headed for favorite swimming spots, dropped from rope-swings into the deep sloughs, and finished off with a picnic on a sandbar.
Huge dredges created these sandbars by pumping out the riverbed to deepen the main channel. For us, fun on the sandbar was exciting because we could never be certain that footing was solid. I remember running breathlessly across a newly dredged bar toward my dad in the rowboat, and as I ran every footstep opened a hole where water flowed in. I was on the brink--living on the edge--of safety.
To judge from what we see in the media, today's society is on the edge of survival. Neither the world's economy nor our personal well-being seems secure. Wherever we live, most of us at some time face challenges to our financial or personal well-being. We feel threatened when we find ourselves living on the edge. Do such challenges have to be anguishing, draining experiences? Or can we surmount such situations with the spiritual supremacy that can be gained by drawing closer to God? Yes, we can surmount them if we humbly and confidently begin to acknowledge God, divine Spirit, as our very Life and being. Once we start identifying ourselves as spiritually inseparable from God, who is perfect, infinite Mind, we're on safe ground. Supremacy over trouble is certain.
Turmoil, lack, and insecurity are lies about God and His creation, which includes you and me and everyone. Such lies have no true foundation because they don't originate in God, who is Truth. True being, right here at this moment, is encompassed in Love and governed by divine Mind, the one supreme intelligence. In an address published in her book The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, said: ``Remember, thou canst be brought in to no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance."
Earnestly to seek God's guidance, we must reject false, mortal beliefs that would misguide thought--would entice us away from all that undergirds and guarantees man's spiritual, God-protected being. This genuine reality of our being, consciously acknowledged, establishes for us the heaven on earth that Christ Jesus' life and works presented so conclusively. This kingdom is a spiritual state of divine consciousness that is intact, uncollapsible, and firmly grounded in Truth. When this true concept of God' s supremacy is uppermost in our thought as we go about our daily assignments, we don't get sucked into accepting mortal beliefs that oppose man's eternal security within God, all-powerful Truth and Life.
Christ Jesus taught us to adore the one God, Spirit, and he assured his followers, as John's Gospel records, ``Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." This freedom is our spiritual birthright, and it includes divine protection in all situations. By acknowledging this God-given ability to surmount evil and to prove this dominion in our relationships, homes, and workplaces, we will overcome the temptation to believe we're ever living on the edge of safety. We'll experience Life at its truest, which is Life eternal and contains no fearful predictions, no dangerous brinks or turbulent conditions to sweep us into danger. This is experiencing the heaven within us--God's gift of ever-present harmony.
