"The stability of thy times"

LAURA LOUISE LLOYD

Confronted with the many arguments of instability, disquiet, and agitation encompassing everyday living, the earnest student of Christian Science gratefully ponders the following passage from Isaiah: "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times."

On every hand we hear and read apprehensive predictions concerning our times. The alert student, striving to keep in thought the eternal verity about God and man made in His image and likeness, is ever ready to turn aside from any erroneous suggestion involving his own or another's victimization by the belief of bad times formulated by mortal mind through material thinking.

Conditions throughout the world today may attempt to convince the fearful that mankind is at the mercy of an incontestably evil power. But through the consecrated study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, many are learning the truth about real being, and they are not dismayed by erroneous conditions and suggestions. They are learning the truth about our times.

The prophet tells us that wisdom and knowledge constitute stability. Many are deluded into the vain search for wisdom and knowledge in the fields of human erudition and intellectual attainment alone. When, however, material ways and means fail, men learn that true stability lies in the wisdom and knowledge of God and His ever-operative law. In divine Mind only, right ideas are to be found. God imparts these saving ideas, always true and wise.

A student of Christian Science looked out of her window and saw lately fallen snow being blown first in one direction, then another, by strong gusts of wind. How like shallow mortal thought, with no anchorage, swayed first by one false belief and then by another! But when individuals gain an understanding of God and His law of ever-present, stable good, the winds of false belief fail to frighten, discourage, or make ill. Our Leader writes on page 57 of Science and Health, "The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven." How lovingly she points out that the world has no stability to offer!

As we are obedient to Truth and unite our thought with God, good, the belief of time or times past or times to come ceases to trouble us. "Now," said the Apostle Paul, "is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Now is God's time; so there is no mortal time. Wherever we are now is the time or opportunity to demonstrate our oneness with divine Love. There is no procrastination in Truth, no waiting till a near or distant day or date. This very instant God's love for us, His ever-operative law of good, governing His own, can be realized and utilized.

We often hear the remark, "When a more convenient time comes, I shall do thus and so." How mistaken a view that is, for when one waits for a convenient time, he is waiting for something which in reality never arrives, since time is an illusion, a mirage of mortal thinking. Chance is no part of true wisdom and sure knowledge. Love never guesses or waits. The door of Love is not open one day or hour and closed the next. Therefore, if we identify ourselves with divine Love, and gain the sure knowledge of our oneness with God, we are wise indeed. No suggestion of discord, disease, or unemployment will then be able to hold our thought down to the material level.

A student of Christian Science sought help of a more advanced student when a gust of fear of unemployment seemed to engulf him completely. Gently he was told to lift his thought above fear and not to limit God. To keep one's thought above materiality is indeed employment enough. It keeps one busy. The student soon found a position—a humble one—but he was obedient and gave faithful service. And soon other, more remunerative positions followed, until he was called upon to do the work for which he was qualified.

To rise above materiality does not mean to run away from it. In solving the various problems which beset mankind today, we must not attempt to escape them, but to rise above fear, and solve them with the truth which makes free.

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