Article May 11, 1918 Issue

Daily Supplies

MANIE DONA SCOFFERN

On many occasions the writer has been able to use the statement on page 307 of "Miscellaneous Writings" where Mrs. Eddy says, "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies." In a recent application of this thought to a financial problem, the question presented itself: For what purpose does God give His spiritual ideas? Surely He does not give them in order that we may make His ideas finite by limiting them so as to serve our own selfish interests, as we are sometimes prone to attempt to do even after we discern the futility of trying to pile up matter. How often we hear the remark, "Well, I have been trying to know that God is the source of my supply, but still there does not appear to be any improvement in my financial affairs." Usually the trouble is that the one listening to and voicing such an argument, is so blinded by selfish, material demands that he has not let go of mammon sufficiently to permit God's spiritual ideas to govern his thinking.

It is absurd to think that we can lay hold of these spiritual ideas while we entertain the thought of commercializing them. The spiritual ideas of to-day have the same source and nature as those concerning which Jesus said, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." They reveal to us the unity which exists between God and man, and thus convince us of the folly of believing that man is separated from aught that he really needs, and that he must struggle to gain the supply of those needs. Christian Science cannot be used to bring us merely commercial success any more than it can be used to make us merely healthy animals. Its office is to make us less commercial and less animal. Neither supply nor health is given that we may be at ease in materiality and indulge animal propensities, false appetites, extravagance, vanity, laziness, or waste, but that we may be alert to glorify a loving Father and manifest harmony. Health is gained in the proportion that God is recognized as the only Life, and man as the reflection of this perfect, harmonious Life; so supply is made manifest in the proportion that God is recognized as the only substance, and man as the reflection of substance.

In the Manual of The Mother Church (Art. XXIV, Sect. 5), under the heading "God's Requirement," Mrs. Eddy says, "God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love to characterize all the proceedings of the members of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist." If "God requires wisdom, economy, and brotherly love," these are the things that we are to strive diligently to bring out in all our affairs, and they surely are contained in the spiritual ideas which God gives. We cannot expect God's law to lift us above a business problem or sense of lack which is the result of lack of consideration for others, indolence, pride, miserliness, greed, avarice, dishonesty, or fear, unless we are willing to apply divine law to the elimination of these false standards from our thinking. When these are corrected we have obeyed God's requirements, and the result must be correct, as certainly as mathematical results are correct when the basic law of mathematics has been adhered to. Law and order characterize all God's work, and should characterize ours as His image and likeness; therefore law and order are natural and normal to man.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Daily Supplies

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access