MOST of us are familiar with the many Bible passages which advise us to seek God that we may experience health and harmony, but do we often think of the passages which inform us that God is seeking us? For example, we read (Ezek. 34: 11), "Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out," and again (verse 16), "I will seek that which was lost . . . and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick."
Christ Jesus' parable of the lost sheep points to this truth of God's seeking us. In it the shepherd left the ninety and nine that were safe on the hillside and sought out the one that had strayed. And if he found it, the parable continues, he rejoiced in it more than in all the other sheep.
How does God seek out His sheep? Is it not by the very nature of His being? God is Love, and Love is an ever-present, impelling force always acting upon and disposing of whatever would oppose Love and Life. God is Truth, and Truth destroys error. God is good, and the allness of good precludes a belief in evil. God is Spirit, and the reality of Spirit makes it impossible for matter to be real.
What greater love can God manifest toward us than to send into our hearts the truth which destroys all evil, sin, and sickness? What else could make us happy and free? The Apostle John said (I John 4: 9, 10): "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
Jesus showed clearly what the Christ, Truth, could do for humanity. He showed mankind the real nature of God as Spirit and of man as His likeness. He proved mortal life, with all its woes and limitations, to be unreal. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 63), "Jesus came to seek and to save such as believe in the reality of the unreal; so save them from this false belief; that they might lay hold of eternal Life, the great reality that concerns man, and understand the final fact,—that God is omnipotent and omnipresent; yea, 'that the Lord He is God; there is none else beside Him,' as the Scriptures declare."
The greatest gift God can bestow upon mankind is the understanding that Spirit, not matter, is the basis of life. Christian Science gives one this understanding. When he learns that life and intelligence are not contingent upon any form of matter, or material concept, that Life, Mind, is all-power and all-presence, regardless of what the physical senses present, one begins to see that the apparent evils in the world can be challenged and that he can demonstrate the peace, health, joy, and dominion which rightfully belong to man as God's likeness.
Divine intelligence forever acts upon the opposite of Mind, suppositional matter, ignorance, and erroneous concepts, just as light compels darkness to give way to the light. Divine Love is an all-powerful, ever-present persuasive animus which seeks its own and causes every fearful, limited, false concept to be replaced with Truth, just as water seeks out the dry and depressed areas and makes the desert bloom. Neither fear nor rebellion can long hold out against the gentle impulsion of Truth and Love. Self-righteousness remains still before the penetrating and leavening influence of Truth.
Jesus' parable of the prodigal son illustrates the gentle persuasion of Truth and Love which caused the younger son to repent of wrongdoing and return to a right course of thinking and acting. Saul of Tarsus experienced the compelling and illuminating power of Truth on his way to Damascus. This event so changed his character and course of action that it helped to shape the history of Christianity. He became convinced that nothing could separate him from the love of God.
God seeks out "that which was lost," binds up "that which was broken," and strengthens "that which was sick." Speaking of God as our Shepherd, Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (pp. 150, 151), "He guards, guides, feeds, and folds the sheep of His pasture; and their ears are attuned to His call."
God seeks us, and we seek God. God seeks us by being ever-present, all-acting Life, Truth, and Love. We seek God by being responsive to His truth. Governed by the facts of spiritual being, our lives glow with the health, happiness, and holiness of reality. We love God, and God loves us. We desire to know Love and Life, and Truth informs us that Love is already present, pouring forth more than we are accepting, presenting spiritual life and well-being, which need only to be acknowledged and demonstrated.
A mental consent to pain, disease, limited ability, restricted activity, or depleted being is a denial of God's allness, of His ever-present love for us, and of His ceaseless presentation of Truth. To repent of error and to forsake false, material laws, beliefs of corporeal sense, and mortal limitations is to love God and render oneself subject to the spiritual laws of health and holiness.
Christ, Truth, comes to us and corrects, enlightens, inspires, and heals us through God's great love. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 390), "Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sense for the joys of Soul." But Truth never compels us to give up the pleasures of sense without first presenting us with something far better.
When I was a young mother and living in the midwestern part of the United States, a wise pioneer woman was our neighbor. She liked to visit me and help with the babies. One day one of the children picked up something I considered harmful, and I took it from him. His cries brought forth this remark from the woman: "Never take anything from a child without first offering him something better." I never forgot that incident and often thought: How like God's way! He never demands a sacrifice without first presenting us with that which is far more precious and satisfying.
May we always see how to give up the false and accept that which divine Love is pouring forth. We can be assured of the comforting fact that God is seeking us out and loving us, pouring out the precious truths of spiritual Life, which annihilate all erroneous, material beliefs, including sickness, frustrations, disappointments, and limitations. Can we not believe and trust in ever-present Love and Truth?
