Article February 15, 1988 Issue

What's bulldozer in German?

When we're busy "expecting the worst," we may not see the good that God already has in store for us.

Sally L. Sharpe

Often when I've felt discouraged I've turned to this Biblical promise for comfort and assurance: "As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."^{I Cor. 2:9.} It has always reminded me that mere human senses —the "eyes and ears" that accept a limited sense of good—can never quite imagine the great good that God, divine Love, has in store for His children. Good, like God, is infinite, unending, always present and perceivable. If, however, we allow our perception of good to be determined by the limited, mortal senses, we may find our experience clouded by events that are not good.

I've come to see that things that aren't good—setbacks, reversals, disappointments, disease, and even death—are erroneous views which the carnal mind, that false sense of life and intelligence in matter, presents to human consciousness. To the carnal mind, or mortal mind, even the concept of good is flawed, subject to chance and dissolution. But we needn't accept such pictures of inharmony if we are careful to make our observations from a spiritual standpoint and focus on the ever-widening vista of divine reality, including the complete harmony and unlimited blessings that are God's gifts to His spiritual idea, man.

The limited, material sense of life, which certainly originated the phrase "too good to be true," is quick to expect the unpleasant. It often seems more surprised by an outpouring of good than by the appearance of evil. How important it is, therefore, for us to guard our thinking against the tendency to anticipate that an outcome will be bad!

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