Article January 16, 2012 Issue

No pawns in God's kingdom

By Randy Erwin

Anxiety, worry, and doubt —they’re all a subset of fear. They’re emotions that suggest uncertain or adverse outcomes in the future: Am I going to lose my job, my home, my financial security, or a loved one? Will I sustain good health? Are world events hopelessly out of control? Sometimes it seems like there is no logical way out of a problematic situation, no conceivable relief from a bodily ailment. From this perspective it’s easy to feel a sense of discouragement or despair. 

We can be alert, however, to the early signs of these misconceptions about man’s being. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, addresses this critical issue in her defining book Science and Health where she says: “Meet the incipient stages of disease with as powerful mental opposition as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit” (pp. 390–391). The word disease in this passage doesn’t necessarily have to be confined to sickness of the body, but could include any dis-eased condition of human experience, any disruption of divinely ordained harmony. It could also apply to the unsolicited fear that enters thought suggesting a possible departure from God’s seamless, perfect plan.

A higher level of spiritual insight and progress is achieved when we proactively stand guard against the introduction of anxiety, worry, doubt, into consciousness. Mrs. Eddy refers to this preventive approach in Science and Health: “Stand porter at the door of thought” (p. 392). Like a mental remote control, we can push the “mute” button to protect our thought from the barrage of beliefs that are constantly parading before us as reasons to be fearful. Instead of entertaining these beliefs, accepting their intimations that we can be separated from God, eternal good, as porters we can immediately dismiss them as having no validity whatsoever. Eliminating erroneous beliefs at the outset spares us the mental struggle necessary to uproot these beliefs once they’ve been accepted! 