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A Very Present Help in Trouble······················································································· Duncan Sinclair

What deep assurance of God’s care, and of His power to help, runs through the Psalms! Psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” and in Psalm 91 we read, “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust. . . . There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”
···· What faith in God these words depict! And yet, they were written long before Jesus delivered his message of the Father’s love to mankind, and longer still before Christian Science gave its great teaching to the world. If the Hebrew people of these far-off days could trust in God so completely, how much more should those living today, with greatly increased spiritual enlightenment, be able to do so!
···· Christian Science shows that every trouble which afflicts mankind is due to wrong thinking about God and His creation. How do the majority of men think today? Do they not believe that evil is as real as good and as powerful, if not more so? Believing this, they are practicing evil incessantly, — dwelling upon it in their thoughts and manifesting it in their actions. And the result is trouble of all kinds, including disease, sorrow, and lack.
···· If the troubles which afflict mankind are to end, men must learn to think rightly; that is, to think thoughts which are righteous and good. To do this, they must understand what God, good, is. God must be known as divine Love, or infinite good. And if God be infinite Love, or infinite good, what should be the duty of all who understand this great truth? They must deny reality or power to evil, and renounce it in all its forms! They must replace evil beliefs with qualities which are good, such qualities as compassion, honesty, and steadfastness; for these will certainly be manifest in love, purity, wisdom, and health.
···· When men forget or do not know of the infinite love of God, they may sometimes feel as if they were being overwhelmed by what appears to be the desolation of existence. But God is never absent from His own creation. In what, to human sense, may seem the darkest hour, divine Love is right at hand; for then the human heart is receptive to its healing message. “In the desolation of human understanding,” writes Mrs. Eddy, “divine Love hears and answers the human call for help. And the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance and vice.”(Mis.)
···· God is Love; and God is omnipotent. Christ Jesus surely understood this when he declared, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” How great is the need of mankind to know more of the Father’s love, and to trust that love, even as little children put their trust in those who love them! For along that line of faith and spiritual understanding lies the salvation of the whole world from its heavy burdens.