The Power of Good
THE illegal drug trade touches -- or threatens -- most people's lives in some way. Not only are the producers, sellers, buyers, users, affected, but bystanders, law enforcement officials, and ordinary citizens feel the effects of this pernicious trade. And if ever the side of law and order needed a helping hand, it is now. We can find the needed help by turning to God, omnipotent good. The prophet Elisha trusted that God was more powerful than anything else. As a result, he was able to prevail against a host of Syrian soldiers without any human assistance whatsoever.1 Elisha assured his servant, ``They that be with us are more than they that be with them.'' Then he prayed that his servant's eyes be opened so he could see the power that Elisha already knew was always there. Whereupon the servant saw God's power in the form of ``horses and chariots of fire.'' And God's power protected Elisha and his servant better than any army could have.
It is the all-powerful, good God who created all that was created; and created it to be good. This creation includes man, who is spiritual, created in the likeness of God, good -- not of evil. As we prayerfully endeavor to understand -- and live in accord with -- our God-given nature, we find the strength to resist evil. We can actively avail ourselves of God's power to bring healing to any situation through prayer -- the prayer of absolute trust in God's omnipotence and goodness that, like Elisha's prayer, opens eyes to see the practical effects of God's goodness and might.
When I was about eleven, I had an experience that showed me the ever-present power of good to protect me from harm. One day a man convinced me to help him look for some money his daughter had lost. After a few minutes he had cornered me behind a building and accused me of having taken the money. He was insisting that I take off my clothing so he could check to be sure I hadn't hidden the money. I was frightened and tearfully maintained my innocence. I didn't know what to do.
Then suddenly I had the courage to march around the man to leave. Physically, I had been in no position to fight this man; no one had come to my rescue -- there were no physical chariots and horses. But about the time of my encounter my mother, a Christian Scientist, had been impelled to stop what she was doing and pray. My mother's prayer had helped me to see God's protection in a practical way. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: ``In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, and the physical senses must give up their false testimony. Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.''2 I saw the evidence of this in myself, a shrinking violet who got tough -- and in the man, who ceased trying to impose his bad intentions on me.
It might seem that the odds that good will prevail in the drug war are about what Elisha's servant thought theirs were in facing the Syrians -- or what an eleven-year-old girl's would have been against someone older and much stronger. But when prayer opens our eyes to acknowledge and demonstrate God's power for all to see, we find that we're not helpless in the battle. It has been said that ``one on God's side is a majority.'' But when we understand God's omnipotence, we see that it's got to be more like a monopoly!
1See II Kings 6:8-23. 2Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 192.
