It might seem like we’re always on shaky ground. Whether it’s something at home that needs fixing, a problem upsetting people in the community, or an international crisis, something is always calling for our attention and making us feel like the world has been turned upside down. But despite the impression of disarray we might get from our to-do lists or from the news, true stability is available to all of us when we look in the right direction.
Centuries ago the prophet Isaiah wrote, “Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?” (Isaiah 29:16). These words, quoted in this week’s Bible lesson on the subject “Unreality” from the Christian Science Quarterly, are part of a call to rely on God, even when human reasoning points in a different direction.
As Christian Science explains, God is divine Principle, the creator of everything real, and unchanging Love, always maintaining His creation in perfect order. When we see suffering or we’re feeling a sense of burden in our own lives, we may be tempted to say that God “had no understanding,” or that something has gone wrong in His formerly perfect creation. But that would be like a piece of pottery calling the person who made it incompetent.
Through spiritual sense, everyone’s God-given ability to experience and understand divine reality, we can recognize anything that undermines our sense of stability and security as a “turning of things upside down,” because it isn’t consistent with God’s unchanging love for His creation, and in its place we can begin to experience good. Relying on Him, we find stability and practical, effective, and lasting solutions for problems of all kinds.
I had a good example of this a couple of years ago. When I got out of bed one day, the whole room seemed to be spinning and rocking back and forth as if I were on a boat in a storm. When I took a step, I toppled over. Climbing back into bed, I told my wife that I wouldn’t be able to prepare breakfast that morning, and we both turned to God for help.
I knew that, regardless of how it seemed to me, the floor was stable. After all, the furniture wasn’t moving, my wife had no trouble walking normally, and our cats weren’t panicking. It was clear that the issue was entirely one of perception; my perception was not aligned with reality.
Knowing that the room wasn’t moving, I felt I should be able to walk normally, so I stood up again. But when I tried to take a step, I toppled over again. Why? The inaccurate testimony of my eyes and sense of balance, telling me that the room was spinning, was still more convincing to me than the conclusion I had come to so logically. In order to experience the reality of a stable floor, I couldn’t simply close my eyes and acknowledge the truth intellectually; to see through the illusion that the room was moving, I needed to consciously refute the suggestion of an unstable house, regardless of what I seemed to see, and wholeheartedly accept the truth.
Now I could no longer be fooled by what I was seeing. The next time I stood up and took a step, there was a moment of dizziness, but I knew that the sense of motion was an illusion. I refused to accept it, and acknowledged only stability as the fact, and the dizziness vanished before I took another step. I was able to go on with my day as usual, and I haven’t experienced any dizziness since.
What happened is described perfectly in this sentence from the Christian Science textbook: “The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 276). Not simply understanding, but realizing, that the feeling of dizziness was not – could not be – grounded in reality set things right, enabling me to experience the harmony and stability that had been present all along.
No matter what image of instability you might be confronting, you can know that under God’s government, nothing is ever turned upside down.
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