Article October 22, 2012 Issue

Angel thoughts that guide us

Pamela Foulds Urell

Many people are familiar with the 91st Psalm, which contains this reference to angels: “For he shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (verse 11). Until I read Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, this verse had little meaning to me. But since I began the study of Christian Science several years ago, Mrs. Eddy’s definition of “angels” has become perhaps the most important explanation of how God operates in my life. Her definition is as follows: “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality and mortality” (Science and Health, p. 581). Elsewhere in the book, she also wrote, “Angels are pure thoughts from God” (p. 298).

When I first found Christian Science, I went to a Wednesday evening testimony meeting where I heard a man tell how he listened for God’s angel thoughts while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge at rush hour one day. He heard the direction, “Move over one lane.” He immediately recognized this as divine direction and moved over one lane to his right. At that moment, a car coming in the opposite direction came into the lane he had just left. Had he not moved over, he would have been hit head on by the oncoming car.

I was so impressed with his testimony that I wanted to learn to think this way—to be so in tune with God’s thoughts passing to me that I would immediately recognize the “still small voice” speaking to me and trust it, follow it, instantly! Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds” (Science and Health, p. 1). Since that meeting I have strived to listen intently to these thoughts, and I have discovered that it is the way that God operates in our life.