Most people rely on the physical senses to inform or confirm their life experience. But do the physical senses show us what’s really happening? Or are they deceptive?
Last year the unreliability of the physical senses was reinforced for me on a visit to Hawaii. I awoke at 4 a.m. to sit outside and gaze at the stars. I watched the constellation Orion hour by hour until it leaned over so far that it looked like Orion’s foot would dip into the ocean and get wet. I laughed because I knew the underlying stellar facts of what I was seeing. Orion wasn’t tipping over; the Earth was rotating on its axis at 1,000 miles an hour.
This week’s Christian Science Bible lesson, on the subject “Matter,” offers insights on whether we should believe the testimony of the physical senses by highlighting the perspective of Paul, one of the greatest Christian missionaries ever. Paul warned the early churches of Galatia against self-deception, saying, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:7, 8).
Paul referred to God as Spirit to teach people about their true spirituality as God’s offspring. He urged listeners to grasp their innate God-given capacity to understand God as the source of their health and well-being; in short, to see what’s true.
We know from the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible that Spirit’s creation is spiritual and “very good,” though the material sense of things is quite different. That raises the question: How can we yield to the spiritual facts of God’s harmonious creation instead of consenting to the opposite so-called facts of matter?
To answer this, it’s helpful to consider what Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, says in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” on page 471: “The facts of divine Science should be admitted, – although the evidence as to these facts is not supported by evil, by matter, or by material sense, – because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God’s reflection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirituality of the universe is the only fact of creation.”
God, Spirit, universal good, is the only power. Understanding that Spirit alone has power and presence dispels matter’s deceptions and brings healing. I experienced this spiritual truth when I went on a hike with my husband. It was early spring, and normally there would be no insects, but all of a sudden large black wasps swarmed my bare arm and stung me. I felt intense pain and saw welts rise on the arm. I was sure the sting marks would soon disappear. But by the next day the inflammatory symptoms had spread aggressively up and down the arm, suggesting an allergic reaction.
That’s when I prayed by asking God, Spirit, to show me more of my true spiritual being. Then I recalled that on the hike I was voicing criticism of our city government for making decisions that I felt ignored what longtime residents wanted. My thoughts had been filled with irritating beliefs instead of appreciating all the good that God, Spirit, constantly gives everyone, including me. No longer deceived by a material view of things, I noticed the pain stopped and the sting marks quickly faded away, and there were no aftereffects.
Since then, I’ve become more alert to deceptive thinking, and when I spot it I immediately focus on God, good, by moving from one spiritual thought to another. Letting my thought move higher with the joy of spiritual sense, I see more of God’s glorious earth and feel more of Spirit’s peaceful presence.
A statement from the Bible lesson asks a crucial question: “Spirituality lays open siege to materialism. On which side are we fighting?” (Science and Health, p. 216). We don’t have to be led astray by the testimony of the physical senses. Instead, we can each decide daily to perceive more of the spiritual sense of life.
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