THE clear promise of the Bible is that, regardless of every appearance of deprivation, misery, and despair, an understanding of God and of man as His reflection will replace the sorrow, ruin, and ashes of the mortal dream with the beauty and amplitude of the Life which is good.
Perhaps the most vivid illustration of this grand fact is found in the story of Job. What a picture of utter hopelessness he presents, sitting in ashes, having lost all that was dear to him—his herds, his house, and his sons. It is the presentation of the mental state of a mortal who has believed that matter is substance, that joy and satisfaction are to be found in materiality and health in body, and has found his trust vain and his labor fruitless. Had Job accepted the concept of himself and of his situation that prevailed among his "comforters"—who whispered their condemnation and then derisively tormented him by asking, "Who ever perished, being innocent?"—he would never have recovered his health and his substance, nor regained the respect of his friends. Instead, with some measure of spiritual vision, he later replied to their charges, "Your remembrances are like unto ashes," that is, without substance, truth, or reality. The moral of Job's struggle may be summarized in these words from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 536): "Through toil, struggle, and sorrow, what do mortals attain? They give up their belief in perishable life and happiness; the mortal and material return to dust, and the immortal is reached."
It was the Christ, Truth, that awakened Job from the dream of human desolation to the possibility of every man demonstrating in his own life the fulfillment of the promise of Isaiah that here and now men may gain "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It is reassuring that when Job came to express something of the "mind of Christ" and therefore could understandingly pray for his enemies, his joy was restored and God gave him more than he had before.
