God's promise of protection
The world is a small place. In fact, our global village is a family village. Something that happens in one corner of the world is seen as a call to prayer by people in other corners. Someone can be praying for his or her brothers and sisters on the other side of the world even before a request for such help has gone out. So many times people are protected from harm or catastrophes. This may be because somewhere, someone is praying for safety, and somewhere else, another one is benefited.
Prayer offered for our global family brings peace to our thoughts, but it also benefits all on whom our thoughts rest, including our world. That is the divine way of protection. Prayer that raises consciousness to the realization of God's goodness and the spiritual reality of our – and everyone's – perfection fills thought with the awareness of divine Love's presence. This conviction that Love is with us drives out fear and discord; it denies them any opportunity to cause harm or danger. God is ever present and is working in us. His power stills, calms, and restores us.
Prayer for the world is supported by the divine promise of God's love. For example, the Bible tells how God protected Noah from the flood. That he and his family would be saved was a promise. As God is everlasting and His love for us is changeless, we can trust that He will deliver us all also.
The book of Isaiah describes God's care in a notable way – that each one of us is so loved by God that our names are etched in the palms of His hands (see 49:16). God is ever present with His loved children.
One biblical message that provides a particularly complete promise of deliverance from evil is the 91st Psalm. It has comforted people for centuries. Through divine reason and law, the promise of deliverance comes – God is our refuge. The psalm says, "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust." If God is our refuge and we are tucked safely in the arms of divine Love, then nothing can get through to us unless it goes through God first.
Another verse of the psalm says, "There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." No pestilence or destruction shall harm those who trust and abide "under the shadow of the Almighty."
Centuries after this psalm was written, Christ Jesus showed us the way by giving us a clearer view of our identities as sons and daughters of a loving God. Through this law of reflection, we can go beyond the false belief in existence as flawed and material, and reject the idea that we could ever be separated from our loving Father-Mother God.
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, explained our unity with God in this way in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "God, the divine Principle of man, and man in God's likeness are inseparable, harmonious, and eternal" (p. 336). We are always in the presence of divine consciousness, which delivers us from all harm. This consciousness recognizes the divine law that casts out all that is unlike itself.
As we learn more of God's ever-present love, we'll feel the protection of being in that "shadow of the Almighty," and we'll also be able to help others feel that sheltering presence.
Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ?
shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...
Nay, in all these things
we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us
from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35, 37-39
For a Swedish translation of this article, see The Herald of Christian Science.
