Sacred accounts, modern application
The Bible is a book of stories, in most cases about real people. They are accounts from thousands of years ago, but we can find ourselves in them. And I feel we really need to do this because these are our stories, too. They’re about us, and about now.
Think of Moses. At one point God revealed Himself to Moses as the great I AM, the one God, and then told Moses to go to Egypt and free the enslaved Israelites. God was with Moses and the people, providing whatever was needed throughout the years of their journey from slavery to the Promised Land.
This is a wonderful story about God’s power and love for His people. God is the same God today—the same loving, fathering-mothering God in our lives. And so as we put ourselves in the story, we see that it’s a promise to us, a revelation of what is true here and now as well. God chooses us for a good purpose, and through His Christ reveals Himself to us as the God who unfailingly leads us to spiritual freedom—freedom from whatever would try to enslave us.
Moses was afraid to argue for the Israelites’ freedom, but God showed Moses that he could, with His help, do what was required of him. God assured Moses of His mighty power, saying, “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will perform in it; after that he [Pharaoh] will let you go” (Exodus 3:20, New Revised Standard Version).
God gave Moses further signs of His power by turning Moses’ staff into a serpent. Then, when at God’s command Moses seized it, it became a staff again. Likewise, when Moses was told to put his hand into his cloak and it became leprous, his hand was restored when he repeated the action (see Exodus 4:1–7 ).
And just as surely as God protected Moses and his people, that same protection is here for us.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, its author, Mary Baker Eddy, explains that God showed Moses that evil only seems to be real and powerful; that wherever evil seems to be, God is powerfully present. She writes, “The illusion of Moses lost its power to alarm him, when he discovered that what he apparently saw was really but a phase of mortal belief” (p. 321 ). Clearly, God is always directing our spiritual growth, freeing us from fears of limitation and moving us beyond what seems to be, to see instead the truth that God is right here with us.
Similarly, God comforts us by revealing our spiritual identity as His reflection—never having to do anything on our own. When Moses felt afraid to speak before Pharaoh, God said: “Who gives speech to mortals? … Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak” (Exodus 4:11, 12, New Revised Standard Version). It’s much the same for us. Whatever we are required to do, we can accomplish because we are never alone and need never feel afraid.
Whatever our pathway of healing, the journey is always with God. We are guided, perhaps not with pillars of fire or cloud plumes, but with clear signs to direct our progress. And we can expectantly trust God’s supply along the way, whether in the form of inspiration or our daily bread. And just as surely as God protected Moses and his people, that same protection is here for us. God frees us from fear and from any type of Red Sea danger that might come our way.
Recently I had a healing that, for me, was rather like Moses’ staff-and-hand experience. I was out for a walk and suddenly found myself flat on the ground. I was surprised, but my first response was to say to myself, “It never happened.” That may sound silly, since at the time I was face down in the grass, but I was thinking from the perspective of what I know about God. As I got up off the ground, I reasoned that since God was loving me and in control of me all the time, as His spiritual idea, He would not have let me fall. So the episode had to be one of those Moses-like illusions of mortal belief. Only to the material senses could I have fallen. In spiritual reality, God had never let me out of His care and protection, so I couldn’t suffer. For a short while there were twinges of pain in my body, but I kept praying to understand that nothing had happened to my spiritual identity, and within an hour or so I was totally free. God’s natural law of harmony, ever at work, had restored harmony to my body.
Stories about people in the Bible tell of God’s love and care in the past. Recognizing that these stories are our own stories as well gives them fresh power and brings inspiration and healing for today.
