Finding true security

Whether we’re caught in a terrifying storm, facing some threatening illness, or serving in our country’s armed forces, the Golden Text from Deuteronomy in this week’s Bible Lesson, titled “God the Preserver of Man,” assures us that “the beloved of the Lord” are kept safe “all the day long” (33:12 ). The Lesson shows us where we can look for a true sense of security.

In Section 1, we learn that even during fiery trials, we remain “precious in [God’s] sight” (Isaiah 43:4 , citation 3). This precious protection derives from our inseparability from our loving Father-Mother God. Mary Baker Eddy defines this unbreakable relationship as an indestructible coexistence “unchanged in its eternal history” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 471 , cit. 5). As God’s reflection, we can no more exist separate from our source than an image could appear on a mirror without the original being present. Such inseparability ensures our safety when we trust in the presence of the Lord.

The shepherd boy David shows his absolute trust in his inseverable relation with God when he says, while approaching the fearsome Goliath, “I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts” (I Samuel 17:45 , cit. 9). Science and Health emphasizes that “faith in and the understanding of divine Love” (p. 288 , cit. 8) will deliver us from all evil or the “illusion of material sense” (p. 71 , cit. 7). Trusting God under every circumstance, we will find Him “a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1 , cit. 12). 

Even against the physical elements of the world, we can expect God’s help—as demonstrated when Jesus stills a storm that threatens the small ship he and his disciples are sailing in and so preserves the lives of everyone onboard (see Luke 8:22–25 , cit. 15). Since we have an indestructible relationship with our Creator, it’s not surprising that trust in this Creator preserves us under any circumstance. As we understand our indivisibility from God, who fills all space, we will experience the ever-present “healing and saving power” of the Christ, Truth (Science and Health, p. 285 , cit. 17).

This healing power is demonstrated when Jesus heals the woman with an issue of blood (see Luke 8:43–48 , cit. 19), thereby proving divine Love’s capability to meet human needs. Further, he instructs the woman that her faith has made her whole. This instruction turned her thought away from the body and taught her that real being is sustained by divine Spirit, not matter. Mrs. Eddy drives this point home when she urges us to “hold perpetually” to the thought that the omnipresent authority of the Christ empowers the certainty of the rule of healing (see p. 496 , cit. 24). 

Section 5 reinforces the preserving character of our inseparability from our Creator with those well-known lines from Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he states that nothing can separate us from the love of God (see 8:38, 39 , cit. 24). While a false sense can seem to separate us from the preserving love of God, the great truth remains that our spiritual status as the image of God “cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle” (Science and Health, p. 303 , cit. 26). He who made us preserves us.