Recently, in a conversation with one who was going through deep waters, it was said, "What is needed today to shepherd us out of our individual and national problems is a revival of good old-fashioned faith in God." The writer recalled that there was a time in her young girlhood when she felt that she had that good old-fashioned faith. But it never seemed to accomplish the things she hoped for or bring to fulfillment the Bible promises she held to be true. Then she witnessed the healing through Christian Science treatment of one who had been pronounced hopelessly ill. Convinced that Christian Science was the truth that Christ Jesus promised, she turned to it for the answer to questions which had puzzled her for years.
As she continued to study, the beauty of the Bible verses became luminous with meaning under the radiance of the new interpretation. The Scriptural promises which had been obscured by scholasticism stood out with crystal clarity. As she more clearly discerned the true nature of God and man, she began to see why her faith had failed. It had been founded on blind belief in God and not on a spiritual understanding of Him which results in works or proofs of healing. Hers had been an emotional sense of faith, equally divided between material remedies and Scriptural promises; a passive faith which waited for something to happen.
Faith, as understood in Christian Science, leads to the steadfast understanding of God alone as power, presence, deliverer. Placing one's faith completely in God, one demonstrates the divine potency. Faith in good is a spiritual activity and is not akin to quiescence or lethargy. In this hour the world's problems are so poignant and so great that only the presence of God can solve them. A revival of pure faith in God as physician, friend, guide, is imperative if the world is to be saved from materialism and godless tyranny.
