Coping with the weather

Extreme weather conditions and changing weather patterns are testing people's adaptability. Efforts are being made to meet these challenges, but some are asking, ''Isn't there a better solution than just tolerating or adapting to the problem?''

There is a spiritual answer. While we cannot personally control the weather, we can realize through prayer that God is the one true power and that He governs His creation in perfect harmony. Discerning that God is good and the only genuine cause, despite physical evidence to the contrary, we can begin to gain some measure of dominion over the effects of extreme weather conditions - and contribute to a lessening of those conditions.

The Bible indicates that the power of God, infinite Spirit, is adequate to still tempestuous elements: ''They cry unto the Lord in their trouble,'' we read in Psalms, ''and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.'' n1

n3 Psalms 107:28, 29.

There is no material element, no atmospheric disturbance, no extreme weather condition, that can resist the infinite power of God, all-embracing Spirit. This fact was proved when Christ Jesus and his disciples were caught in a violent storm on the lake of Galilee. n2

n2 See Matthew 8:23-27. His initial concern was not for the raging elements but for his disciples' fear. ''Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?'' he asked them. And proving that their fear was groundless, ''he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.''

Jesus was undisturbed. In fact, according to the gospel account, he was asleep until his disciples woke him. The Master's attitude stemmed from something more than mere bravado or blissful unawareness. He knew that man possesses God-given dominion over the elements, and he exercised this dominion to still both the storm and the disciples' fear. He showed God's all-preserving nature to be ever-present Love and demonstrated the dominion that springs from man's inseparable relationship to God as His spiritual likeness.

As we begin to discern something of our true nature as Spirit's reflection, we glimpse the fact that we're not in reality environed by disruptive or destructive matter but by God Himself, Love, Spirit. He fills all space. There is no condition, then, that can freeze, melt, or drown His love. God loves and cares for His creation, including man, and this can be proved, whatever the circumstance. His love is universally available for all to understand, experience, and practice in daily life.

These spiritual facts become clearer to us as we model our lives after Jesus' life and teachings. The God-derived qualities Jesus lived, such as mercy, compassion, humility, and integrity, point the way to safety in every situation, including dangerous weather conditions. Christlike living gives us dominion over the storms of hate and violence that assail humanity. It enables us to discern and prove God's absolute supremacy, which ''maketh the storm a calm'' and preserves harmony.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes prophetically in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: ''The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist will find that these changes cannot affect his crops.'' And further on she continues, ''The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air.'' n3

n3 Science and Health, p. 125.

Through prayerful and practical acknowledgment of God's ever-present love we can immeasurably improve our own and mankind's God-given ability to cope successfully with the weather. As Jesus showed, to conquer fear is to bring ''a great calm,'' both in our thought and in our environment. DAILY BIBLE VERSE O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. Psalms 89:8, 9