See and acknowledge. Yield. Follow.

I have always loved how this week's Bible Lesson topic, God the Preserver of Man, follows so naturally God the Only Cause and Creator. There is so much to work with this week! It opens with a promise from Psalm 121 assuring us that God guards and protects us from all dangers. The Responsive Reading has quite a bit of Psalm 91 to reinforce this promise.

I have often reminded myself that God has assigned His angels to watch over me. I love the image of those messengers and their messages keeping me safe all ways and always. They lift me up, uphold my thinking, and sometimes literally hold me up when I seem to be confronted with a 'stone', something that would cause me to stumble in my study and application of Christian Science. Something that seems too hard for me to understand. Something that comes in the form of resistance to Truth and its healing power. The Responsive Reading continues with Psalm 40 with a reference to 'an horrible pit' and 'miry clay'.

I was reminded of our former home in Texas. Not that my home or my time there was horrible. It was not at all. It was a wonderful time of spiritual growth. But that growth came as the result of working through some challenges that seemed like a deep pit or depression, a low point. We bought a home in a new housing development. It was great fun to go over and visit the site as they laid the foundation. The yard backed up to acres populated only by the occasional cow. Later on Ian and I discovered fossils lying around on the ground. One day we went over after it had rained and their was a patch of perfectly smooth ground in one corner. Only after we stepped in it did we realize it was clay, clay that stuck to our shows in an inches thick layer and was hard to remove. Miry clay. We felt like dinosaurs caught in a tar pit! Miry clay would try to keep you stuck in place. But the Psalmist assures us that God lifts us out of situations like that and sets our feet on a rock, a firm foundation that will not sink under us.

The first section continues on with Noah and the flood. Safety and preservation came in the form of an ark. This is an assurance that we can survive and overcome any flood of suggestions about our health, our finances, our relationships and ride above any storm in harmony. I will be working today with three ideas in the final citation from Science and Health for that section. "All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth.  See and acknowledge. Yield. Follow.

See and acknowledge. All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea. Harmony is the reality.
Yield. So many applications. Cultivate, as in agriculture. Bring in the harvest of your good work and prayers. Give over possession of. To give forth the natural product of. To produce a return for effort. These are all so positive, no negative connotation to yielding.
Follow. To go after. To move along the course of. Follow and rejoice.

This is going to be a great week!