Go to the top

Good morning.'' Groan. ''What's good about it? It's misty, dark, damp, and thoroughly depressing.''

''Not really. Before long you'll see the sun. I guarantee it.''

How could I make such a guarantee? I was reporting from the top. Our forest service lookout was perched on a mountain peak high above the cloud cover that caused such gloom in the ranger station below. Blue sky, bright sun, and a crystal-clear view in all directions except downward were what I saw.

The picture from below might be likened to the mental cloud covers we find ourselves under at times. They come in a variety of guises - grief over the loss of a loved one, unemployment, lack, stress, relationship or physical troubles.

The Bible points to the solution, particularly through the life of Christ Jesus. We might say he worked from the top - he was obedient to the First Commandment, ''Thou shalt have no other gods before me.'' n1 He gave power to no other cause but God, accepted only one source of being, recognized the continuity of infinite good.

n1 Exodus 20:3

When the ''five thousand men, beside women and children'' needed feeding, and there were only five loaves of bread and two fishes for supply, Jesus looked to God, Love, the source of tender care for all man's needs. Not only were the multitudes fed; there were leftovers! n2

n2 See Matthew 14:14-21

During a challenging time in my own life I came to the point where preparation for the next meal meant facing an almost empty cupboard. The cloud of lack seemed pretty thick. Lifting my thought to God, I thanked Him for all the proofs of His sustaining love I had had through the years. Before long there was a knock on the door. A new friend stood before me laden with fresh vegetables from her garden and with a loaf of homemade bread just out of the oven.

Willingness to accept God as Love, guarding, guiding, comforting, providing, keeps thought above fear and receptive to the abundant good always at hand.

Another cloud cover is the belief that some trouble is beyond hope, that it's too late. Jesus disproved this again and again. In the New Testament account, when Jairus's daughter died, others told Jairus not to bother the Master any further, that she was gone. Again, our Way-shower went directly to God as the source of man's being, and she was restored. n3 He broke through the mist, through the mistaken concept that life is in matter, and he proved the presence of God as Life. Time is a mortal measurement, never a factor in the spiritual truth of man's existence.

n3 See Mark 5:35-43

You may be saying to yourself, ''Yes, I believe these beautiful healings in the Bible, but I just don't understand enough about prayer or God to do healing work.'' Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says, ''Befogged in error (the error of believing that matter can be intelligent for good or evil), we can catch clear glimpses of God only as the mists disperse, or as they melt into such thinness that we perceive the divine image in some word or deed which indicates the true idea, - the supremacy and reality of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil.'' n4

n4 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 205

There's nothing passive in that statement. Even though we can't yet walk on the water, we can perceive, be alert to, the ''word or deed'' and disperse foggy concepts and the ills associated with them. Why muddle around under the clouds, accepting doom and gloom as something we're ''stuck with''? Let's go to the top! DAILY BIBLE VERSE As it is written, Eyehath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, thedeep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. I Corinthians 2:9-12