THE presence of God is ever with men. Throughout the whole universe He is never for one moment absent from any place, however remote, or from anyone.
What does this breathtaking thought imply? Not that God is present to overcome the difficulties we seem to encounter, but that because God is present, everywhere, all the time, because He fills all space, such difficulties have no real existence; they are the illusions of the belief that there is another presence, named evil.
In Psalms we read, "Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob" (114:7). In referring to this Scriptural passage, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 135), "The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God's unchangeable law."
This association of what are called miracles with the presence of the Lord brought great enlightenment to the writer. Such a realization of the presence of God, our Father-Mother, as being always with each one of us so filled her consciousness that she understood the healing Christ, the true idea of God, as never before.
It became clear to her that in the presence of God, of Life and Truth, of divine Principle, Love, no sin, sickness, or death, no confusion, no hatred, no war, no poverty, can possibly exist. Any so-called manifestation of the belief in sin, sickness, discord, and death must inevitably cease at the moment the actual presence of God, ever with men, ever filling the universe, is understood.
The clear realization of God's presence and of all that this includes resulted in a healing of a head injury and what appeared to be concussion. With the help of a practitioner, the writer was able to be about her duties in just over one day and to take a sixty-mile drive on the second day. The dark discoloration around both eyes also disappeared in a comparatively short time.
A little while later, however, there were further complications resulting in partial paralysis of one side of her face. She realized that she needed to do some specific prayerful work. It was then that the thought of the presence of God continually came to her consciousness. Over a period of a few weeks she studied all the references to presence in Mrs. Eddy's writings, and as she gained a clearer and clearer understanding of them, the sense of pressure and paralysis lifted.
Since God is Mind and all-presence, intelligence must constitute all true consciousness and must be ever present, everywhere. There can, therefore, be no lack of intelligence anywhere. Must not the belief in evil minds, in slow thinkers, in insanity, and in retarded intelligence be merely the illusion that there is something present which is the opposite of God, Mind?
Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 333): "The 'Alpha and Omega' of Christian Science voices this question: Where do we hold intelligence to be? Is it in both evil and good, in matter as well as Spirit? If so, we are literally and practically denying that God, good, is supreme, all power and presence, and are turning away from the only living and true God, to 'lords many and gods many.'"
This Mind is the only Mind there is; in reality it governs all within the harmony of its own law and order. This truth can be applied to all nations, all governments, all men. As we see and maintain the ever-presence of God, Mind, great will be our contribution to the world's redemption from the seeming presence of chaos, greed, dishonesty, unintelligence, and self-interest; and the Christlike qualities of order, satisfaction, honesty, and brotherhood will become universally seen and made manifest.
Jesus said, "God is a Spirit" (John 4: 24). The only presence there is, therefore, must be that of Spirit and its spiritual creation. Can matter, then, really have any presence, any reality, except in our belief? How much easier is the task of healing those under the mesmeric world belief of disease or sin as we realize, actually understand, the allness and all-presence of Spirit and therefore the nothingness and powerlessness of matter.
How severe or how long-standing disease may seem to be or how it was caused is not of importance when it is actually seen that man is the reflection of ever-present Spirit. Matter does not really enter into man's makeup, since matter can never even seem to have existence in the presence of Spirit. This is a profound and inspiring thought; but it is the truth of man's being and thus is worthy of our deep and joyous contemplation, for in its sacred realization lies the Christ-healing.
Because Soul is present everywhere, always, man's true identity is always present and is not submerged by material sense. Do we realize that the only cognizance of discord comes through the material senses? But since Soul-sense must always be present because God is ever present, the material senses can have no presence with which to convey false impressions.
The understanding of man's ever-present identity as the reflection of Soul ensures too his eternal maintenance, for Soul sustains perpetually its own idea and is the only source of its supply. This is the reality of being, which we each can assuredly prove by the realization of the ever-presence of God, Soul, with us.
Mrs. Eddy has given us another outstanding term for God, namely divine Principle, with which she so often associates Love. Now Principle always remains the same because it is absolute. Divine Principle, which is the very basis of all that is, does not fluctuate. It does not lapse from its absolute integrity, from its divine law, which knows no evil, or change its nature of divine, compassionate Love. Just think what it means always to dwell in the presence of divine Principle, for since it is absolute and all-presence, we can never be absent from Principle or outside its steadfast, warm, beneficent operation!
Truly to experience the wonder and glory of the presence of God ever with us, we must change the basis of our thinking from the human to the divine. We must continually search our consciousness to make sure that our every thought is the reflection of the one and only Mind. Nothing else is real, nothing else will give us the sustained inspiration that is the natural outflow of thought proceeding from the divine Mind.
While this all-pervading, glorious presence of God as Father is "mighty ... to the pulling down of strong holds" (II Cor. 10:4), this presence as Mother is also gentle. Mrs. Eddy says (Poems, p. 4):
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering
flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.
It is the presence of our Father-Mother God, in whom, as Paul said (Acts 17:28), "we live, and move, and have our being" always.
