With so many fears and uncertainties being voiced in the media about what effect Carbon Tax will have on our ability to pay our bills, keep our jobs and sustain our industries, many people are feeling unsure of what the future holds. But do we have to view change through the lens of fear? Is there a more secure foundation on which to base our family’s and community’s future well being – one that is unshakable and that can’t be taken from us?
Donna Fay, wrote this article having lived successfully through a very shaky period in her life and her ideas are very helpful in thinking about life with the Carbon Tax.
God supplies our needs
Donna Fay
Fears about the future, about financial affairs and housing, and the way in which costs seem to be spiralling upward, are widespread. How do we face these fears and also pray about the suggestion that something can displace the natural harmony of what Science and Health (the textbook of Christian Science) terms “the divine economy”?
The Encarta World English dictionary defines “balance” in part as “a state in which various elements form a satisfying and harmonious whole and nothing is out of proportion or unduly emphasized at the expense of the rest”. A harmonious whole. Nothing out of proportion. That would accurately describe God’s creation (see Gen.1).
It’s helpful to look at how Jesus faced the problems of the day. His trust in God’s power and presence was rock-solid. He knew that since we are the very image or idea of God, we have to be just like the Creator of that idea: entirely free from mortal limitations and beliefs, and eternally functioning with perfect supply and demand, with a continuously harmonious flow of good. The healings that flowed from his ministry were a proof of these spiritual facts.
Can we prove these ideas in our own lives? Absolutely! In my prayers, I’ve learned it’s best not to start with the problem and get preoccupied with trying to figure out how best to cope wit it or change it. That would be admitting that somehow God’s ever-presence and omnipotence either lapsed or was set aside by another power, situation or condition.
One year, when I was a schoolteacher, I was handed a pink slip at the end of a school year, a year when I had just purchased a new home and was taking on higher mortgage payments. The pink slip seems a big threat to my home and especially my peace of mind. There was no guarantee that they would recall me. If I wasn’t recalled, I would likely lose my home.
A Christian Science practitioner helped me approach this challenge with more spiritual dominion. She reminded me of a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal that starts out “Pilgrim on earth, home and heaven are within thee.” The end of that verse refers to the “pilgrim” as “cared for, watched over, beloved and protected,” by God, and ends up encouraging the pilgrim to “walk … with courage each step of the way” (No.278).
I had the summer to think more deeply about what home really is, and that it is not something that I was enclosed in, with four walls and furniture, fixtures and other things. Rather, it was an idea I include as one the “right ides that Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, says man includes. Certainly home is a right idea for us all. What exactly is home, I asked myself? I saw that it’s a form of refuge, shelter, sanctuary and a resting place. And these are all ideas that man includes as a result of what our Father-Mother God, divine Love, provides for us all.
Certainly God is able to maintain all the conditions that are necessary for a harmonious and safe life; a life safe from financial challenges, and a sense of home that shelters as surely as four walls ensure a refuge from the outside.
The week came and went, and no calls or letters came, but I stayed with what I understood to be the real and only state of my home, an idea provided by divine Love. Then, the night before teachers were to report to work, I received a call informing me I was going to teach again.
Throughout this experience, I’d been forced to trust God to maintain what He had provided for me in the demonstration of this new home. And I also had to see that my needs could be met without diminishing someone else’s supply. I realized through this time that my life could never be ruined by economic conditions, contract negotiations, investments, or precarious financial affairs. The prospects for home were not in the hands of persons or vulnerable to economic fluctuations.
Every need is truly met in God’s kingdom (and there is no other kingdom) because the abundance of all good is ever present and active. Everything we learn in Christian Science affirms this to be true eternally. And we can trust it.
Christian Science Sentinel
July 6, 2011
