Article February 12, 1921 Issue

Walking in the Light

CARRA L. THORESON

In his first epistle, John declares that "God is light," and that "in him is no darkness at all," and adds: "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." Then if we are walking in the light and guidance of divine Mind, we are enjoying fellowship with the Father, and no suggestion of darkness, no lie, or mesmeric attempt to bewilder can divert us from the true path into some jungle of doubt or apathy where we might be led to neglect our duty to Principle.

To have "fellowship one with another" means to associate together with a united interest and with kindly regard, and that is what we must do if we would walk in the light. If one hates his brother, he is stumbling along in darkness; that is, he is thinking darkly, thinking unrighteous thoughts which seemingly blind his eyes to the true light of love and harmony. Thus we need to pray for light, for understanding. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 10), "Prayer means that we desire to walk and will walk in the light so far as we receive it, even though with bleeding footsteps, and that waiting patiently on the Lord, we will leave our real desires to be rewarded by Him." And again on page 510 she says, "Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose 'light shall we see light;' and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense." Then it follows that when one seems engulfed in the darkness of a "false material sense" of sickness, discouragement, sorrow, or poverty, one needs to turn resolutely away from such demoralizing thoughts to the light of Truth and Love; and as the ever presence of God is realized, the false beliefs which infest the darkness silently disappear with the darkness, and the glorious light of Love imparts to the one turning to it that peace "which passeth all understanding."

There are times when the human mind seems fairly to revel in darkness, to gloat over its seeming misfortunes, rehearsing its woes wherever it can find a listener, thus magnifying them and making them seem very real; but just here, when one is groveling in the very depths of despair, one should pray with the psalmist: "Thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?" and confidently expect to be delivered if he but realizes that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." The deliverance need not be deferred, for our Leader says (Science and Health, p. 504), in explanation of the passage of Scripture that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.' The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence."

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