Article May 14, 1921 Issue

True Substance

MINNIE J. GENSEKE

Jesus said at the close of that wonderful Sermon on the Mount after he had expounded to his followers the truths of spiritual law, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.... Behold the fowls of the air... your heavenly Father feedeth them.... Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow."

The writer had for many years been in great bondage to a limited sense of supply and in striving to understand more of God's abundance of all good she received great help from the above quoted Scriptural passages. Though she had read them many times during many years, yet the question came: Had she ever truly considered the things Jesus had given there for consideration? Upon referring to a dictionary she found the following definitions of consider: "To ponder; to study; examine the subject with the view to truth, to think carefully, to reflect." Then the unfoldment came. The fowls of the air manifest free, joyful activity. Their expression of joy is not destroyed because they have a nest to build or little ones to feed. Do we not sometimes let ourselves become so absorbed in the material needs that we overshadow our reflection of spiritual joy? In considering the lilies the writer thought of their wonderful beauty and purity manifest regardless of the ugliness of their surroundings. A lily is a lily wherever you find it. Are we not, however, sometimes seemingly affected by the ugliness of our surroundings rather than the beauty and purity of the individual perfect man, God's idea?

The writer had always felt she was not in the least extravagant, having always made her expenditures with much care. Nevertheless, in delving further, in self-examination to uncover and destroy the false belief of lack, she looked up the word extravagant and found it defined in part as, "a going beyond the limits of strict truth." How many times she had let her thought go beyond the limits of strict truth! How often her thought had expressed limitation in the consideration of her fellow man! Many times she had even expressed the very opposite of strict truth by thinking of a brother as in bondage to a belief of sin or sickness, unkindness or dishonesty. Then it was seen how much time and thought were extravagantly wasted every day. And we do not often find an expression of abundance where there is great waste. Finding she had exercised much more care in the disbursement of money than in the disbursement of thoughts, thereby giving more heed to the material than the spiritual reflection, she experienced an earnest desire to reject every limited or unprofitable thought. The question of considering the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air was put in these words: Is your reflection always as joyously active as the bird, and as beautiful and pure as the lily? Do we always reflect the same beauty and purity of thought to every one we come in contact with? The lily does not close its blossom of beauty when some certain person passes by, but do we not sometimes lessen our reflection of love toward some particular person of whom we have had a limited and false concept?

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