Article September 3, 1984 Issue

"Felt ye the power of the Word?"

ALICE KINSMAN SMITH

On a particularly busy day we may think or speak of feeling tired, depressed, frustrated, ill. The way we feel may assume importance and may determine how we act. But we don't have to let negative feelings control our actions.

Christian Science teaches that such feelings can be corrected with the affirmative spiritual perception that evidences God's control. In her "Communion Hymn" the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, asks three questions that challenge negative perceptions and require spiritual discernment: "Saw ye my Saviour? Heard ye the glad sound? / Felt ye the power of the Word?" ^{Poems, p. 75.} Feeling "the power of the Word" is a spiritual experience, a deep conviction of the Christly presence, a rich trust in Christ, Truth. It comes as we silence the physical senses so the Word can be recognized. The Psalmist describes God as saying, "Be still, and know that I am God." ^{Ps. 46:10.}

This feeling is in no way emotional or sensory. It is an inspired acceptance of the divine communication, not a reaction to the stimulus of physical sense. Spiritual conviction produces peace not agitation, harmony not pain, trust not fear. It brings to our experience something of the saving Truth that Christ Jesus taught and exemplified, which prophets and disciples glimpsed. Paul, knowing what it meant to feel deeply the presence of Christ, Truth, explained: "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." ^{Rom. 8:38, 39.}

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