Love holds the control

I imagine that most of us would probably prefer to avoid being thrown into a den of hungry lions against our will. Nor would we enter voluntarily into what looks like certain destruction!

This likely was also true in biblical times for Daniel, whose story describes a time under King Darius when being thrown into a den of lions was punishment for refusing to acknowledge the king as a god (see Daniel 6). Daniel continued to follow the First Commandment – to worship the one God he knew to be the only true God. And although the king had been tricked into meting out this punishment against his own personal wishes, Daniel’s profound trust in Love, God, protected him and the lions. The king celebrated with Daniel God’s saving power and the Love that held control and secured good for all.

Interestingly, Daniel’s prayers did not keep him from having to enter the lions’ den. But his understanding of God’s power gave him the spiritual realization that there was no real danger, even in the place that seemed most dangerous. He could go through this experience and be safe. Daniel brought such a sense of Love’s control over him, and all, that the ferocity of fear was neutralized. “Understanding the control which Love held over all, Daniel felt safe in the lions’ den,...” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 514).

Have you ever found yourself thinking that if only you’d prayed harder or studied more, then you wouldn’t have had to face some difficult thing? But scientific prayer is not employed to control circumstances or avoid facing hard things. On the contrary, it delivers us from fear, anxiety, and danger. It proves that no matter what hard things we have to face, Love holds the control and protects us. We understand this as we know God as Truth, Spirit, and Mind. This Mind causes its expression, each one of us, to know and feel divine presence and power in any circumstance.

Someone sent me a cartoon recently that said, “Relax! Nothing is under control.” But in order to really relax and stop running ourselves ragged trying to always keep things under control, we have to understand that control is held by a higher source – God. Understanding that divine Love is always governing allows us to relinquish a need to be in charge and to let go of attachment to a certain outcome. We can do this by yielding to Christ – the divine influence ever present in consciousness that enables us to see through the struggle to the pure gold and perfection of true, spiritual identity.

Yielding everything to Love, we find ourselves yearning more to experience dominion than to avoid challenges; more to gain the awareness of being the beautiful reflection of Soul, God, than to look a certain way; more to have a conscious, ongoing sense of unity with good, God, than to just fix a problem and go on our way; more to feel the spiritual power of our own innocence than to point out the faults of others.

Yielding to a Christlike approach of knowing Love’s power brings deliverance and healing. We discover happiness in trusting God as Soul rather than in trying to create perfection in our human experience.

When King Darius ran to the lions’ den the following morning, it was with the hope that Daniel’s trust in his God had delivered him. Explaining his protection, Daniel said, “My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me.”

The all-power of divine Love gives us a conscious sense of our freedom from apparent destructive forces. This same power operating for Daniel has not been displaced over time. When we gain confidence in our safety through an understanding of our unity with God as Mind, Love, and Spirit, we can face our own lion-like problems. The Christlike understanding of being facilitates protection from evil through the strength of innocence – true spirituality and godlikeness. Yielding to this Christly intuition brings us safely home to the confidence that good is operating – right where we feel a dread of something bad happening.

Knowing Mind’s government of all creation gives us equanimity and the confidence to find safety and security in the only place where true safety can be found – God. And we see that Love is all that can ever control us and all.

Adapted from an editorial published in the Aug. 15, 2022, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.