Mary Baker Eddy writes in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 290), "Divine Love is never so near as when all earthly joys seem most afar." These comforting words from our beloved Leader remind us that in times of tribulation, when the burden is heavy or the day dark, divine Love with its supporting power is nearer and more vital than ever before.
Often we draw nearer to God in times of trouble than in moments of earthly joy or worldly complacency. Earthly joys come and go, worldly ambitions rise and fall, but once the spiritual foundation of life in Christ is understood, then the calm currents of spiritual being flow into consciousness unobstructed by the debris of materiality. These purifying, invigorating currents of Truth restore health and give us the spiritual concept of life, which is expressed in joy, power, movement, and perfect circulation.
Our trust in divine Love deepens as we learn to depend wholly on God and are willing to strike away the props and makeshifts on which the material sense of life is obviously founded. There is no foundation to life except that of God and His Christ, the manifestation of God. We can and should feel true strength and security only when we are willing to rely wholly on Spirit as the source of health and affluence. Constant reliance on divine Life, Truth, and Love increases our confidence and strength. The tests of our faith are salubrious, not afflictive. The discovery that matter is insubstantial forces us to discard our trust in it and turns us unreservedly to Spirit.
A Christian Scientist has accepted the premise that God, Spirit, is All-in-all and that man is created by God in the image and likeness of Spirit, not matter; therefore when matter fails, and fail it must, Spirit is found to be our substance, life, and intelligence. This surely is cause for rejoicing. It teaches us to rise quickly above affliction with the conscious conviction that harmony is already established in Spirit; and our immediate concern is to recognize that all things are created spiritually, and thus health, holiness, and even happy relationships are the concern of the Father and remain safe and permanent in His keeping.
It is well to watch that our trust in Spirit is strengthened day by day. We move in one direction or another. We gravitate either toward Mind, Spirit, or in the reverse direction toward so-called mortal mind and matter. When Jesus made that arresting statement (Mark 10:23), "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God," his disciples were astonished. Seeing their dilemma, he qualified his words by saying, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!" Here his emphasis was not on wealth and prosperity as such, but on trust in wealth as a condition of matter instead of Spirit. This conclusion is confirmed by his words as recorded in Matthew (6:33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
There is affluence in the kingdom of God, but it is the wealth of God's love and not an accumulation of matter. We shall find spiritual ideas nearer, dearer, more vital and available, as our trust is transferred from matter to Spirit.
The Rock, Christ, as understood in Christian Science is our basis of security and strength. The spiritual integrity of the Christ, the certainty with which it works, the absolute control it exercises, radiate more and more clearly in consciousness as we move joyously along the way which at first is straight and narrow but expands into moral and spiritual freedom as we walk in it.
Looking out on the world today with its numerous contradictions of health and sickness, wealth and poverty, we may well wonder whether this chaotic scene can ever be transformed by a change of thought from the material to the spiritual. Perhaps we are thinking of it too much in terms of time and matter. Since the advent of Christian Science the change from matter to Spirit has already begun, and thought is moving Spiritward with a speed unprecedented in the history of the human race.
The change-over from matter to Spirit is coming just as fast as the world can bear it. Have not many students of Christian Science found that their progress in Science depended not only on their fidelity to its teachings but also in the ratio that they were able to accept and assimilate the revolutionary change from matter to Spirit? Perhaps we look back upon a time when we rebelled at the moral and spiritual demands of Christian Science. Long-cherished habits and indulgences clamoring for their right to exist had to be drastically overcome and replaced by more spiritual concepts. With honest hearts we submitted to the mandate of God's government, or else, rebelling against the demands, we retreated into matter for a time until suffering or necessity awakened us to a realization of the false basis upon which our pleasures rested.
In that moment divine Love came nearer than ever before. Turning with childlike trust to Love's leading, we saw the fictitious joys of earth fade and melt away from consciousness to reveal man's spiritual individuality, healthy, harmonious, pure, and strong, existing here and now as God created it. No physical effort is needed to produce this concept of man. Born of God, man is nourished by the Love that created him. When we do our part in maintaining our unity with God, we can rest in the knowledge that God loves His own and has already met their needs and satisfied their affections.
Let us claim Love's recompense. In the book of Ruth we read (2: 12), "The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust."
