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The spiritual waymarks that keep us safe

If we find ourselves in troubled waters – whether literally or figuratively – we can look to God for inspiration that guides and protects.

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  • By Roger Whiteway

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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There have been times when I’ve found myself in troubled waters, searching for a path that leads to a safe harbor. And I find I can rely on God’s waymarks to keep me in the deep-water channel of the Divine – and off the rocks of disappointment, fear, and despair.

In my United States Navy training as a midshipman, I learned how to identify channel markers, buoys, and lighthouses that enabled me to fix my position, to prevent going aground as I entered or departed a harbor.

“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, a follower of Jesus and the discoverer of Christian Science, is full of metaphysical channel markers that enable us to reestablish our position relative to God, the divine Principle of being. Here’s one that I go back to often: “According to divine Science, man is in a degree as perfect as the Mind that forms him” (p. 337). That Mind is God. And the “man,” that’s your and my eternal and safe spiritual selfhood.

As a boy, I loved body surfing. One day, looking for bigger waves, I kept moving farther out from shore and soon found myself pulled out to sea in a rip current. I was no match for the current, and I needed to find a way out.

I turned onto my back, looked up at the sky above, and began praying for inspiration – listening for the spiritual waymarks that I had been learning in the Christian Science Sunday School. One was that all things are possible to God.

God holds all of us, His spiritual sons and daughters, safe in His care at every moment. When we’re open to this spiritual fact, we experience it more readily in our daily lives.

Rather than start a frenzied search for the shoreline, I just stayed quiet, treasuring that idea that nothing is impossible to God. I have no idea how long I was floating on my back like this when suddenly I was lifted up on a wave and tumbled onto the sand, safe and sound.

Since that day, there have been other occasions when I’ve found myself in troubled waters, whether literally or figuratively. But by turning to God and listening for spiritual waymarks, I’ve always been directed to a path that leads to – or better said, reveals – our safety in God.

Adapted from the March 24, 2022, Christian Science Daily Lift podcast.

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