Help when you need it

Have you ever faced a rough patch in which everything seemed to go wrong, but was unexpectedly resolved, and you thought, “If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have been so upset”? My wife and I had a similar experience early one winter morning.

We were late for an appointment, and our car doors wouldn’t unlock. The electrical system had frozen in the bitter cold. With some difficulty, we opened the doors manually, but there was only mute silence when we turned the ignition key. A friend’s jump start got the engine going, but also triggered the car’s anti-theft alarm. We couldn’t shut off the blowing horn. Awakened neighbors looked out from their windows.

“Why does everything have to be so hard?” my wife lamented.

Puzzled amid the annoying din, I searched the car manual without success for any reference to an unstoppable blowing horn. I prayed to God, “Father, please show us what to do.” I wasn’t asking God to manipulate a mechanical malfunction to meet our need, but only that I might demonstrate that discord of any kind has no place in His perfect kingdom. I know my wife was praying, too. Right then a thought struck her like a whisper from God: “Lock the door electronically, then open it electronically.”

Although it felt counterintuitive, we obeyed the order and instantly it reset the alarm system and reopened the car doors. Until then, it had not occurred to us to lock an unlocked door we were trying to open. But by our bending to divine direction, a wrong procedure was righted. Thankful for the car’s restored functions, we drove to the dealer to get a new battery and were happily surprised when the old battery tested OK. And the missed appointment? It was postponed.

Marveling at how well everything turned out, we saw that only a false belief in a troubled world outside of God’s control was behind our needless worry. We have no crystal ball to tell us there’s nothing to fret about, but we do have something better: the Bible and its promise of ready help. Whether we’re facing a giant warrior, a fiery furnace, a lions’ den, horror in the belly of a whale—or simply a balky automobile—“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1 ).

We saw that only a false belief in a troubled world outside of God’s control was behind our needless worry.

The Bible unfolds our true being as God’s expression of Himself. His eternal perfection is our birthright, making us the protected products of His volition. Hence no Goliath can defeat us. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, cleared the smoky tumult from the battlefields of materiality when she wrote, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 494 ).

Jesus proved this by seeing the real man of God’s making, not the fallible, suffering man of mortal belief. In his healing ministry, the Master claimed no power or ability beyond what we all share as children of God. He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12 ).

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke record Jesus telling those whom he healed that their faith had made them whole. This suggests that while we may not fully understand our relationship with God right now, God sees that we always have what we need when we need it. The healing ministry of the Christ glorifies the true idea of God. It’s not blind faith, head-in-the-sand optimism, or, as Doris Day sang on her 1956 record, “Que sera, sera; / Whatever will be, will be.”

What will always be is God’s perfect creation, populated by His perfect children. As the prophet Jeremiah declared: “Ah Lord God! behold thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee” (Jeremiah 32:17 ).

Effective prayer affirms the ever-present divine help that is already at hand. It does not ask for more.