When my family lived in the
In the Christian Science textbook, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures, the discoverer of Christian Science says (96:31) ,
"... wicked wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection. "
I suppose one of the major questions we all, of all faiths, have to "discern" is ... is evil more powerful than good? But how can it be, when evil is just a lack of good - particularly when the Bible tell us that God is good and the source of all goodness. To admit that evil is more powerful than good is like saying the darkness is more powerful than the light and wrong thinking to be more powerful than right thinking. It is to think that there is something more powerful than God. Yet God's message to the whole world is:
"Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:22).
Just as the light has all power over darkness, right ideas have all power over wrong thoughts and goodness has all power evil. And to think that God has competition from any other power is like thinking that if every man, woman and child banded together they could stop the sun from rising. Evil can never stop the appearing and presence of good - ever, it is an impossibility.
And where does goodness exist - in consciousness. It is a spiritual quality that is enacted through us all and to us all. Can man then be dominated by evil - either as a victim or a victimizer? The Bible tells us in Genesis (and Jesus proved to us) that man was "made in the image and likeness of God (good)". God, who is the source of all goodness, is then the true source of our identity; our intrinsic selfhood. This true identity is the Christ, our governing Principle. Can we escape from divine Principle and act in a manner that is entirely opposite to our own true self? That's like thinking that 2+2 can decide to equal 3. We are what we are - that is wholly good, not a mixture of good and evil. Goodness has all power over us and within us. It is our conscience, our gut instinct, our subconscious, that voice in our thinking that tells what is right. But because this voice is God's utterance, not the human mind's, it cannot be overthrown or out shouted or ignored. God has no competition in governing His/Her likeness or expression.
In our prayers we can spiritually declare and deeply understand that where man is, God is and His Almighty Christly - and that means every man, woman and child on earth. Right where wrong thinking would do mayhem and violence, man brings to that place, peace and healing solutions. And evil has no power to dominate the good that is present, whether is be a suburb or a consciousness, just as the darkness cannot dominate the light. In fact the darker that night the brighter the light shines and the further it can be seen.
(Isa 44:8) 8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
Our prayers then help to blow that mist away that would fool us into thinking of man as just a flawed, fallen being, capable of evil, so that we all can see the truth - the man of God's creating, wholly good and entirely loved. Our prayers turn on the lights so that the omnipresent good of God can be known, seen and experienced by all and the darkness of human thinking utterly extinguished.
