"Stand still"

SUZANNE PASCHE

One reason why the children of Israel began to murmur against Moses was that they were afraid of the Egyptians who were pursuing them. In their forgetfulness of God's ever-presence, they believed their enemies were about to overtake and destroy them; and then fear almost overwhelmed them. Nevertheless Moses, who had come to understand that God never forsakes His children, said to them: "Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." These words quieted them; they remained calm, and passed on dry land through the Red Sea without difficulty.

This passage, read and often reread by the writer, became illumined when at a time of acute physical suffering, after several weeks of struggling, she was very near to yielding to discouragement. As she again read the passage, the words, "Fear ye not," and, "The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace," took on a clearer significance, and she saw in the light of Christian Science that where we seem to see a struggle there is in reality none. There should always be a fervent faith in ever present Love, an assurance that God is fighting for us, and that we have only to hold our peace, knowing that he who abides "under the shadow of the Almighty" is always safe.

As it never entered into God's plan to have His people destroyed by the Egyptians, so it has never entered into Love's design to cause us to suffer. It is our own false beliefs which bring us fear and pain. The Israelites were murmuring against an encounter which might occur, but the certainty of which rested on no solid foundation. We suffer similarly as a consequence of expecting trouble, accepting the belief as real, whereas it is only our own false belief. The moment we change our thought and keep it occupied with good, the opposite of the evil we think we see approaching, the trouble disappears. Where has it gone? Nothing in God or the real man has changed, and yet the acute suffering we believed ourselves experiencing has vanished. It was scattered as a cloud, swept away by the truth; and it is the understanding of the perfect state of our real being, incapable of reflecting anything but the qualities of its creator, which has transformed our condition.

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