Sunday, June 14th, 2026 Roundtable
The Comfort of the Psalms
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: God The Preserver Of Man
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayer
WATCH PRAYER FOR THE WHOLE HOUSEHOLD
All is love, peace and harmony. Heaven is right here. Truth reigns. There is no strife. Love has destroyed all hate. All is peace, love and joy. Run and not be weary. The need of the hour is simplicity, meekness and obedience. Beloved Father-Mother God, give me wisdom to meet all the problems that may have to be met today; give me understanding to rebuke error and moral courage to speak the truth. Give me grace to remain silent when not necessary to speak.
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 110
Daily Watch
472 — WATCH that you realize that Jesus’ statement, “Give and it shall be given unto you,” is a law that carries with it the power of enforcement. To obey it with right motives means to exercise it, and hence to experience its promise.
Discussion points
Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untoward conditions, if without sin, can be experienced without suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 385
God rests in action.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 519
Responsive Reading: Psalm 91 : 9-12, 14
9. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
10. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
11. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
12. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
14. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
“We live in difficult times, with many people unsettled as a result of the things going on around them. This is why the psalmist’s invitation in this psalm is very relevant today: He invites us to make the Most High our dwelling and to live in the shadow of the Almighty. Indeed, those names by which the psalmist calls God are instructive to us. As the ‘Most High’, God is higher than any terrifying heights this world may threaten us with, and as the ‘Almighty’, He’s got power over anything that we may face on this side.
In the psalms, God repeatedly invites us to find our hope, salvation, and refuge in Him. It is all about dwelling in safety and security. When we are tired, afraid, or sad, we all want a place to go where we can find rest and peace. When we feel lonely, we need a shelter and we all need our safe places. We can take refuge in the presence of the Lord, knowing that nothing can separate us from God’s love. A refuge is a place of safety and protection and, like the psalmist, we certainly can trust God’s faithfulness.
We can rejoice even amid our difficulties by simply acknowledging the truth that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:37-39). Apostle Paul says: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18).
Charles Spurgeon said about Psalm 91: “In the whole collection there is not a more cheering psalm.” He added, “if you can take this Psalm into your soul, it will cheer you so much, that nothing can pull you down for very long.”
As followers of Christ, even in the midst of bad times and uncertainties, we can constantly feel the joyful presence of God. Corrie ten Boom once said “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” While we continue to see unprecedented things across the nations of the world and get absolutely puzzled by all that is changing at such a rapid pace, we can be of good cheer by remembering that our lives are in God’s hands and He is able both to comfort us in our pains and to deliver us, even unto eternal life.”
Notes from Tabitha Rao, St. Bede, Liverpool, England, Psalm 91
The Ninety-First Psalm by Bliss Knapp
The Ninety-First Psalm by Doris White Evans
God’s law is in three words, “I am All;” and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law. … It is Truth’s knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even a claim to error. This knowledge is light wherein there is no darkness, — not light holding darkness within itself. The consciousness of light is like the eternal law of God, revealing Him and nothing else.
from No and Yes, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 30
God’s law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God.
from No and Yes, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 30
It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a Bible-reading people. The principles of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom.
Horace Greeley
Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, pages 476 to 477
A Holy Habitation by Blanche H. Hogue
True Courage, from the Christian Science Sentinel, December 11, 1915, by William D. McCrackan
Final Readings
A Grateful Tribute by Eugenie Reeves
from the November 5, 1910 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel
In the 35th chapter of Isaiah we read: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” In the midst of the isolation and solitude in which my son, now fifteen, and I live, alone on a prairie homestead, a mile or two from the nearest inhabited house, we have daily practical demonstration of the help and ever-presence of divine Love, and thus the wilderness is made glad for us. We have been helped in every way. The privations to which we are subjected seem as nothing when we think of Love’s ever-presence, and we both agree that the former life of comparative luxury without Christian Science, cannot in the least compare with the calm, the trust, the peace of mind, the faith, and the health of the present, although we are surrounded by what many would think to be roughness and poverty.
In August of last year my son was away, and in the evening, as I was watching for his return, I noticed heavy storm-clouds coming from the south, and bearing directly toward us. A two-mile walk across the prairie during a thunder-storm would have been to material sense a dangerous experience, but I quieted my own disturbed thought, and realized the truth of our dear Leader’s words, “His arm encircles me, and mine, and all” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 389). Very soon the heavy clouds passed away to the eastward, and a few days afterward we heard that it was a hail-storm and had done some damage elsewhere. Had it kept on the course it was taking when I first saw it, our little crop would have been wiped out. Again, at the season when prairie fires are so prevalent, there was one raging on three sides of us. The wind rose and it seemed as if we must be burned out. I sat down and read aloud from Science and Health for a time. Then, as I arose and looked out of the window, I saw that the wind had changed and was blowing the fire away from us, and we were safe. This recalls the words of the 91st Psalm: “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee.”
We have also been wonderfully helped in the care and training of our animals. We got a yoke of oxen which turned out to be so wild that men were afraid of them, but with us they were always gentle and quiet. A man whom I engaged to break them in was so rough with them that we took them in hand ourselves, and by treating them with the understanding gained in Science, of man’s God-given dominion, we soon trained them to do any kind of work, but for a long time they would not let a stranger come near them. Of course we easily overcome the belief of fatigue; and health we recognize as a divinely bestowed quality, which we must reflect. Owing to the scarcity of hired laborers, and our small means, we do all the work of this little farm ourselves, knowing that divine intelligence and strength are ours at all times.
How beautiful and helpful is even our slight knowledge of Christian Science, making love well up in the heart for all one’s fellow-men; and how sincere and tender is the compassion we feel for those who will not admit this blessing to their lives! Day by day the light grows clearer and brighter, as it leads us into peace and guides us in all our thought and action. We reverently thank God, and His messenger to this age, our Leader, who has through her piety and long-suffering given us an example of true and faithful living.