TO many there may come a sense of doubt, depression, discouragement, and failure. It may be over problems of sickness, of discord, or of supply, when human efforts, although perhaps well directed and earnestly applied, utterly fail. When such a testing time comes, fortunate is the one who has an understanding of Christian Science upon which to rely, who can turn to its healing ministry for relief. When we see the utter futility of reliance upon material means and modes and are impelled to turn to God, we find His help ever available, His love never failing.
In Christian Science we learn to place trust unreservedly, unswervingly, and understandingly in God and in His infinite purpose and plan of good. "Be still, and know that I am God," said the Psalmist. To pray aright, we must know aright the God to whom we pray, and Christian Science teaches the right concept of God and of prayer. On page 587 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy gives an all-inclusive definition of God as follows: "The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence." Earnest study of this profound definition brings such a realization and unfoldment of the omnipresence, the love, goodness, and allness of God, as to destroy fear of that which seems to operate apart from Him. God, as Christian Science reveals, is the loving and compassionate Father, to whom we can turn confidently in our every hour of need and find help, in whom we can trust implicitly for the fulfillment of our every right desire. In Isaiah we read, "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear."
Trust that does not doubt is based on both faith and understanding— not a blind faith, which merely hopes, but an understanding faith, which believes and knows. Our trust in God should be patterned after that of Christ Jesus, whose trust in Him and in His beneficent outpouring of good never wavered, never failed. Through his perfect trust in God, through his spiritually correct understanding of God and of man, he was enabled instantaneously to heal mental and physical sickness; to bring sight, activity, and hearing to the blind, the lame, and the dumb. Through his correct understanding of Mind as the only substance, as ever present to meet all human needs, he fed the four thousand and the five thousand when, to material sense, the supply had been utterly inadequate. The sublime faith in and understanding of God, coupled with unswerving trust in Him and love for all mankind, which enabled Christ Jesus to do his mighty works, will enable his followers to do the same works today in Christian Science, for the same law is operative now as then, and Christian Science heals as Jesus healed.
