Fact or Fiction?
NEWS reports often sharply focus the minds of thousands or even millions on awful circumstances, which are then accepted as unalterable fact. Fortunately for those touched by such extremity, it is possible to eliminate these awful effects by understanding what is actually fact--and what is fiction. The Bible shows us how to begin. Consider, for example, the inspiring and reassuring guidance given in the book of Proverbs: ``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."
When we place our entire trust in God, we abandon our reliance on what the human mind accepts as the norm in human affairs. Instead, we are learning to depend on the wisdom and spiritual understanding that spring from divine Mind, which is God. God's knowing is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent good. He created man spiritual, in His own image and likeness. Since God is good and is Spirit, He is All-in-all. It follows that our trust can properly be placed only in good, or God.
When our son was in the military, he was traveling in a vehicle that detonated a land mine. He and another soldier were evacuated by helicopter to a city hospital. The army chaplain contacted us to report that our son was suffering from severe internal injuries and spinal complications. He was to be examined by two medical practitioners and two consulting specialists to determine appropriate treatment.
We were permitted to see our son briefly--he was still in his grimy uniform, having reached the hospital only shortly before we did. Immediately my wife began to comfort our son by speaking to him of the fact that God is Truth and that he was in reality the perfect creation of perfect God. Our son was then wheeled away for examination and medical attention, as required by the Army. We were given a room in which to wait. There we prayed for a clearer spiritual understanding of one perfect God, including H is perfect creation, man--unfragmented, harmonious, whole. After some three hours the medical authorities returned to announce that there was absolutely nothing wrong with either of the young soldiers. After a week in the hospital for observation, the young men were granted ten days' leave before rejoining their unit.
When my wife and I and our son turned in prayer to God and our understanding of spiritual reality, healing was the inevitable result. The blast and reported injuries were not the facts of the case. Reasoning correctly from the spiritual basis that God is All and is good to the conclusion that man, who is made in God's likeness must accurately reflect the perfection of his creator, we were able to reject as untrue the mortal report of injury. In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, makes two statements that throw light on this healing. In one she points out: ``Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." And in the other she assures us: ``The nothingness of nothing is plain; but we need to understand that error is nothing, and that its nothingness is not saved, but must be d emonstrated in order to prove the somethingness--yea, the allness--of Truth."
Correctly identifying God's perfect man as the only reality dispels the illusion, or fiction, of error and reveals the spiritual facts. The prayer that did this for our son also touched his companion, for, once perceived, truth necessarily blesses all.
