Article October 19, 1912 Issue

WITHHOLDING FROM GOD

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

To the human sense of things, accustomed to look through the lens of desire rather than of worthiness, it may seem at times that God is indifferent to the human appeal, if He does not actually withhold His blessing; but in the light of Christian Science we see that from God's standpoint, that is, from the standpoint of the perfect creator, man is ever in a perfect state. As we discern this truth clearly in its application to ourselves, we begin to see that as God's children we cannot be separated from our divine source, that there can be in us no place for evil, no place for defect or deficiency, and we consequently begin to exclude these errors and their effects from consciousness. Any difficulty we may experience in realizing God's presence is wholly on our own side, and whatever withholding there may be must be on our own part, inasmuch as God, by the very infinitude of His being, is ever present and cannot withhold Himself from any one.

The demonstrable and therefore unescapable fact that good is the sole reality of man's existence brings mankind face to face with the necessity of giving up their belief in evil in order to reach the immortal and perfect sense of things. Not only the desire for evil but the belief in it must be abandoned, if God is to be All-in-all to us; but do we not too often pray for the healing of sin's effects, and for material ease, rather than for deliverance from the sense itself of evil and materiality? Closing our eyes to the divine standard, we virtually ask that we may find freedom in rather than from a sense of sin, hence our need to learn that the only possible refuge from evil is the consciousness of good; for so long as we accept the claim of another power than God, we shall find no exemption from its servitude and no protection from the suffering which accompanies it.

The question of time in respect to human redemption is purely relative. The passing of weeks and months, or even years, does not of itself indicate that one is not becoming conscious of better conditions as rapidly as God is unreservedly relied upon and obeyed. On God's side it is not a question of time, but of whole-hearted seeking of good. We know best ourselves whether there is any reserve in our attitude toward God; whether, while one hand is reaching out for the healing of our diseases, the other still clings to the false beliefs which produce and support them. Improved bodily conditions can be permanently realized only through an improved state of consciousness, and this higher consciousness is gained, not through desire alone, but through honest reformation. God relieves human distress through the discernment of His perfection and omnipotence, not through a humanized sense of pity for the sufferer, else He were responsible for the continuance of the miseries which He has power to prevent. If one, in his own consciousness, refuses to acknowledge the allness of God, and declares for the existence of something beside Him to which he concedes a power to harm and destroy mankind, it should be easily understood that he is not, in his own consciousness, fully ready to receive God's blessing, although it stands waiting for him and for all mankind to accept.

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WITHHOLDING FROM GOD

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