His Presence

[Original article in German]

MARGARETE KUNDINGER

"SURELY the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not." Thus spoke Jacob on awakening from a sleep into which he had doubtless fallen with a dreary outlook on the future. His departure from home had taken place under adverse circumstances. He had deceived his brother Esau, and was forced to flee from his anger. Unkindness, envy, and deception, these mortal deceivers, had claimed him as their victim, so leading him into sin, distress, suffering, and disgrace. In this mental state "he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows," lay down, and went to sleep. Through the angels—spiritual intuitions—which came to help and comfort him, his consciousness was changed, and he beheld heaven, the presence of God. What had been changed during the night? Was it outward circumstances, the place in which Jacob was lying, the solitude in which he found himself? Or was it not, rather, his thinking that had undergone a spiritualizing change?

Jacob was not satisfied with recognizing only a little of God's presence. He glimpsed the abundance of God, good, and with reverence exclaimed, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Jacob's words imply that he had experienced profound mental uplifting, through which he had risen above the material evidence; and so we may well believe that he gained a great mental healing.

Those who are awakening from the dark night of materiality and from their gloomy dreams of sin, sickness, and death through the illumination that God, good, is ever present and omnipotent—they, too, feel as did Jacob. They, too, are being mentally changed, and with unspeakable joy and great comfort are recognizing that the seeming absence of good is nothing but a dream which the truth is surely bringing to an end.

On page xi of the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes: "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or 'God with us.' " God never forsakes His ideas, never sees them as at the mercy of mortal sense.

For each one the hour will come when he will hear the divine Word, proclaiming his sonship with God and calling him to newness of spiritual life. Sometimes it is in the hours of deepest distress that God's messages touch us. When mortal sense has renounced something cherished, and earthly hopes are destroyed, this is a moment when divine help is longed for and implored, often inaudibly, perhaps unconsciously; when with a trembling heart one is seeking to resign his will to God's.

How lovingly and encouragingly Mrs. Eddy speaks of such moments when she writes (ibid., pp. 574, 575): "The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers: 'Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love.' " The recognition of our spiritual unity with God uplifts us. We learn to know the Father's will as gracious and liberating, and are able gradually to rise above the belief that our life can ever be separated from God. "Thy will be done" becomes to us the most comforting word we have ever heard, for it includes for us all hope and abundance of good.

Jesus said, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Jesus never doubted the unceasing availability of God's love, even as he never doubted the constant possibility of demonstrating it. In saying, "All things are possible to him that believeth," he indicated an important activity, namely, the giving up of unbelief, doubt, and fear in order that we might be filled with the opposite qualities of faith, confidence, and joyousness. To believe that God is, signifies the recognition of Him as the only power and presence.

The subject of Jacob's uplifting was being discussed in a Sunday school class. The teacher will never forget the illumination suddenly experienced when the words, "Surely the Lord is in this place," were perceived in a spiritual light, and their availability in every phase of affliction, anxiety, and sickness was recognized. Later, he learned to understand how important it is always to realize this understanding joyously and gratefully.

The recognition, "Surely the Lord is in this place,"—that is, surely divine Principle is available and demonstrable now and always,—corroborates the truth of our Leader's words (Science and Health, p. 288), "The suppositional warfare between truth and error is only the mental conflict between the evidence of the spiritual senses and the testimony of the material senses, and this warfare between the Spirit and flesh will settle all questions through faith in and the understanding of divine Love."

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