Article September 20, 1969 Issue

Combat Duty and the Christ

E. STUART WELLS

The writer and his men lay in a flooded grainfield. Enemy fire from hidden positions on the mountain ahead ricocheted off the shallow water inches from head and shoulders. Frantic with fear, the writer dug at the mud beneath him with his fingers and attempted to shrink into his helmet.

But an undefinable consciousness of the presence of God enabled him to regain control of himself and to function effectively. He quoted nothing. No words of prayer passed through his thought. He simply felt the presence of divine Love and an assurance that all would be well. Though it seemed that surely more than half the men must be lost, wounds were sustained by only two, one on each side of him, and these were minor. He knew that somehow he had witnessed the action of the Christ, the healing and protecting activity of divine Love.

In the years that followed, the writer analyzed his reactions to combat. He had operated almost constantly under the pressure of fear. It had frequently obscured his consciousness of God's presence, for he was not consistently applying what he had learned in Christian Science. He hadn't sufficient understanding of Truth. He had yet to learn that fear is a belief in lack—lack of security, strength, wisdom, intelligence—lack of faith in the omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience of divine Love. He had yet to learn that an understanding faith in these three verities demonstrates the "perfect love" which "casteth out fear." ^{I John 4: 18;} How much more constructive his experience could have been had he consistently held God's allness before his thought!

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