Article March 21, 1970 Issue

Even the Last Enemy Has No Power

CARYL WALLER KRUEGER

When is the best time to be concerned about the false belief that life ends in death? Is it when we read of death on the highway or in Vietnam? Is it when a friend passes on, or when the medical world has pronounced a physical problem incurable? At such times an understanding of Christian Science can certainly help us see the nothingness of the testimony of the physical senses, showing these so-called facts to be fiction. But our surest protection comes from negating each day the erroneous assumption of a life bounded by birth at one end and death at the other.

The daily assignment we each have is to affirm our immortality as God's blessed child and deny the limiting beliefs of age, heredity, contagion, carelessness, fate, or disaster. The subtlety of error would try to lull us into accepting the inevitability of death by creating a false basis for our protection. We might wrongly think, "I am young. I have good health. I am not going to die." But youth and physical well-being are merely material evidence and no protection against disease, extremes of weather, the seeming imbalances of others, or transportation mishaps. A Christian Scientist places his immunity on the firm foundation described by Mrs. Eddy: "Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony."^{Science and Health, p. 424;}

We respond to God's direction by daily aligning ourselves with God-inspired thoughts and actions, by a willingness to forsake selfish and foolish pursuits. Certainly God is not directing us toward a life suddenly terminated by death. That isn't like a loving Father! Most important, God knows nothing of life in matter. He knows nothing of death. All there is, in reality, is what God knows, and all He knows is good. His goodness includes the eternality and continuity of Life. And, as His reflection, we inherit this eternal Life now and forever. It does not come to us at some vague, later moment.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Your Sleep Shall Be Sweet