by David Evans
“Charity [love] never faileth,” the Apostle Paul writes, after noting that it also “beareth all things” ( I Cor. 13:7,8 ).
“Fine,” you say, “but a bridge in Minneapolis didn’t bear all things any longer. It failed. Dozens of people and their vehicles plummeted into the Mississippi River. What’s Love never failing got to do with that?”
Nothing, actually. God is Love, as the Bible states (see, for instance, I John 4:16). More importantly, Christ Jesus’ healing works prove it, as does spiritual healing that is going on today. This Love is “of purer eyes than to behold evil,” as the Bible also says (Hab. 1:13). It also can’t cause evil. It has nothing to do with a bridge collapse or any other tragedy.
So God has no hand in tragedies such as Wednesday’s bridge collapse and no knowledge of them. Does this mean we’re helpless against such tragedies—that we’re defenseless and just have to put up with them the best we can?
Nope.
Love never fails; it always stands. That’s spiritual fact. And it’s our standpoint from which to advance to progressively defuse evil, which Love would never allow.
The God who is Love makes only a perfect, orderly creation. The God who is Mind makes only an intelligent creation—one that expresses His intelligence. A God who is Life makes only a living creation, not one subject to death. Love, Mind, and Life never fail. They perpetually exist and make love, intelligence, and life the law of the universe.
But how often do we look at things from a limited mortal perspective and see something besides love, intelligence, life, and a universe that expresses them? Way too often, and not only when tragedy strikes.
How often do we buy into the notion that a person or the world at large is “structurally deficient,” as the bridge in Minneapolis was said to be? We tend to think individuals have faults; this one does this thing that just isn’t right, and that one does that other thing that we don’t agree with. Instead of sticking with the spiritual fact that each one of us is actually spiritual, immortal, and wholly good, we buy the notion that we’re material, mortal, and a mixture of good and evil—that people are structurally deficient, not perfect like God.
I think Noah’s three sons in the Bible provide an interesting example. One night Dad—Noah—gets drunk. OK, that’s probably not the best thing in the world. One of his sons, Ham, sees him in this condition and tells his two brothers. He just accepts that, at least this night, Dad is a drunk. The two other sons, Shem and Japheth, see things differently, however. They refuse to see Noah as a drunk. As the Bible symbolically puts it (Gen. 9:23),
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
These two didn’t see their father as drunk and naked. They loved enough to stick with the spiritual view: that their dad was God’s spiritual image and likeness (see Gen. 1:26, 27). This had results. The biblical account doesn’t say anything about Noah being drunk again during his long life, and Shem, Japheth, and their offspring are blessed, while Ham and his descendants are made to be their servants—which can be viewed as material sense (which Ham exhibited) always being subservient to spiritual sense (which Shem and Japheth exercised).
We can be like Ham, or we can be like Shem and Japheth. We can see people and the world as structurally deficient—prone to failure from the get-go and experiencing failure pretty frequently—or we can accept the fact that we’re made by the Love, Mind, and Life that never fail and then live our lives in accord with this fact to the best of our ability. We can make material sense subservient to spiritual sense. We can love. And this love that’s a reflection of divine Love has results. As Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 261), “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.”
Does this mean there will never be another bridge collapse or other tragedy? Probably not. But as we love—as we stick with the spiritual facts day by day, situation by situation—we’ll help the world progressively move away from evil. And if something bad does happen, our spiritual stance can help those affected, just as Shem’s and Japheth’s helped Noah.
Love never fails. As we never fail to love, we’re likely to see evil, not bridges, falling.
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Thank you for this posting. I have never really understood how tragedies such happened when God is Love and omnipresent. Your explanation helps me understand this better although I’ve still got a ways to go. Thanks again.
Thanks David, those are great thoughts for such cases and other tragedies in the world. I like to know that God knows nothing about all that, that it is all a part of the big dream.
What a beautiful responce.
this was a grave expeirence to one of my fiends her uncle was one of the bridges victims i told her about this website and blog and she took notice to it! She really felt the power of God and his infinate love!
Love this article. It’s really, really great.
That’s what we’re all here for, Charley–to help each other feel God’s love and power. Thanks for playing your role.
the David approach to this situation helps each of us to keep our sense of dominion in the magnitude of the physical picture. David brought his challenge down to his level of past healing experiences with the Bear, etc. Each of us has the same God-given ability to do this and bridge over and move on from where we are. Fear not!!
this helps me a lot. there seems tobe so much tragedy in the world. here’s a way to contribute to less. thank you.