The beauty and grandeur of the stars and heavenly bodies have been a source of wonder and inspiration to humanity for millennia. These heavenly hieroglyphs of God lift our eyes and thoughts upward away from the earth and lighten the darkness.

Ironically, with all the great potential of the stars to spark high and holy endeavor, they have also aroused much superstition and idol worship. And age-old superstitions about their arbitrary power to send good or evil upon powerless mortals still abound, not just in horoscopes printed in newspapers and magazines, but also among those whose cultures give great weight to the influence of the stars. Some even believe that this “star power” determines our actions and our health, for good or ill.

But God’s children are never at the mercy of such arbitrary powers, separate from His goodness. The words of the Bible cast out any fearful sense or uncertainty concerning the stars and planets by revealing the everlasting love of God.

Turning away from a merely material sense of the stars, sun, moon, and planets, the Apostle James declared, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

This unchanging goodness of God is a far cry from the uncertainty and fear that accompany the various superstitions about the stars and planets. The Oxford English Dictionary defines superstition, in part, as a “belief . . . founded upon fear or ignorance.” Interestingly, both fear and ignorance are commonly associated with darkness.

The Bible gives many examples of individuals who overcame this kind of mental darkness and were able to enlighten the people around them. Their examples and inspired words still help us today when we are confronted by fearful superstition, as well as the effects of fear seen in lack, sickness, and death.

The prophet Daniel gave us a beautiful analogy to describe anyone who casts out darkness and fear with divine wisdom when he said, “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). 

So, just like the stars that twinkle and lift our eyes up to the sky, “they that be wise” turn our thoughts up and away from fear and mortality to the tender, ever-present love of God, and to our spiritual identity as His children. As mental darkness gives way to the light of divine wisdom, we too become as shining beacons bringing harmony and healing to those around us.

Jesus’ teachings make this clear. He said of the Christ, which he so fully expressed, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Jesus expected his followers—including us today—to prove the reality of his teachings, to experience healing ourselves, and to share this understanding of God with others. As he put it, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Whenever we are confronted with any “belief founded upon fear or ignorance,” whether it be superstitions about the stars and planets, or more broadly, the fearful claims of sickness, lack, or our own short-comings, we can turn with childlike receptivity to the healing truths of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

These books give us the inspired Word of God that lifts us out of fear and ignorance to the true understanding of God’s unchanging goodness. They remind us that we aren’t ignorant, fearful mortals but are ever under God’s infinite care as His sons and daughters—reflecting the wisdom of the one divine Mind.

The words of the Bible cast out any fearful sense or uncertainty concerning the stars and planets by revealing the everlasting love of God. 

The knowledge that our “Father knoweth what things [we] have need of, before [we] ask Him”
(Matthew 6:8) gives us confidence to prove this goodness in our own lives, and to help others. This Christly view of life brings to the sick and sorrowing the promised Comforter, which leads them to the truth that sin, sickness, and death are overcome by the Christ, today as in Jesus’ day.

I recall a time when I was serving as Second Reader of my branch church, and I woke up one Sunday morning with the aggressive symptoms of a cold. I sounded stuffy, and it didn’t seem as though I would be able to make it through the service without a tissue continually held to my nose.

As usual, I spent several hours before the service in prayer for myself, for the congregation, and for the service as a whole. During this time, I remember finding wonderful inspiration from reading the testimonies of people who had been healed by Mary Baker Eddy as recorded in the book Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer (Yvonne Caché von Fettweis and Robert Townsend Warneck). I yearned to experience healing like the people I was reading about.

I then began to pray with a passage from Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy writes: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick” (pp. 476–477). 

Again, I felt that yearning to experience healing as the people in the Bible had whom Jesus healed. The thought even came to me, “I wish Jesus were here right now and could behold me like that—then I’d be healed! 

Suddenly, in a burst of light, the thought came, “The Christ is here right now, beholding me as God’s perfect image and likeness!” I felt so close to God, so grateful for His ever-present love, and so grateful for God’s gifts of Christ and Christian Science. And from that revelation I felt an immediate change in my physical condition. 

My nose stopped running, and I could breathe normally. I rejoiced in the immediate proof of God’s power and goodness and continued my prayer for the congregation with twice the joy and conviction I had before. Needless to say, the service went wonderfully, and I was able to read from the Bible with inspiration and a clear, strong voice.

As we turn to the great light of God’s healing Christ and yield to His gracious gift of love, each of us is gradually lifted out of any lingering superstitious sense of life. We will neither depend on the stars in the sky nor will we fear them. Instead, we will enjoy them as part of God’s infinite creation—lights of beauty in the firmament, as subject to the totally good government of divine Love as we are.