Flood predictions: do we have to accept them?
Recently, in many areas of the world, flooding has destroyed lives, homes, and businesses. And more flooding is predicted. “More than a third of the US faces a high risk of flooding this spring, and Midwesterners may get the brunt of it, according to government forecasters...” the Monitor reported (“What’s behind record flood predictions?” March 17). These new predictions of more flooding to come have alerted me that the time to pray is now.
Do we have to accept this forecast as the last word? Prayer gives us a spiritual perspective on God’s indisputable control and enables us to know that predictions of evil are without cause, force, or basis, because they are not from God. We can take this word of God into our hearts: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isa. 45:22). Accepting this thought shows us that the promise is as true now as it was yesterday. It is also the established word for the future.
Through my study of Christian Science, I’ve learned that I can pray to the one God, the one Creator, who has never created or brought about a single element of disaster. Each of us is actually the image and likeness of our Creator, so we are the beneficiaries of God’s constant flow of goodness and love. Through prayer we can gain the conviction that no problem, including destructive weather, is outside the saving power and grace of God.
The Bible continually tells about God’s supreme control, which is available to bring comfort and reassurance to those in any disaster, including the ones who have been affected by flooding. One psalm says, “The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever” (29:10). There is an indestructible permanency and supremacy in God’s omnipresent rule that is ever operative, even amid the damaging effects of flooding. In prayer we can always turn to it to gain courage, patience, and strength to rebuild our lives.
I’ve found it helpful to pray to understand more clearly that God is divine Principle, and that this tender and caring Principle is loving because God is also Love itself. Principle orders every aspect of its creation harmoniously, and that means all of us, including all creatures, are under His loving care. There is nothing to threaten, and no one to feel threatened, in the harmony of Principle. Nor is there too much or too little of anything; no overwhelming power that can uproot, take over, and ruin the spiritual identity and the life each of us has.
Praying in this way helps us see more clearly that even the elements comprising weather and environment must actually be subject to the law of Principle, which balances all its creation perfectly and never causes devastation.
When we hear or read about flood predictions, prayer can help us feel the confident strength of the Bible’s secure spiritual promises that can lead us out of danger.
Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science and the Monitor, spent her life humbly trusting this saving Principle, God, and showing humanity that it was applicable under all circumstances. In her book for spiritual thinkers, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she wrote: “Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the proud wave, ‘Thus far and no farther’ ” (p. 124). It is within God’s jurisdiction and ruling power to hold His creation together and to overrule and defuse disaster or any prediction of it.
As we continue to embrace in prayer those who are working to restore their lives from the effects of flooding, God will give us the spiritual conviction to know that His power, and not destruction, has the last word.
