Trusting God

Albert F. Gilmore

Christian Science particularly emphasizes the need to trust God, not blindly and ignorantly, but through understanding Him. Trust—that is, faith so established—is both scientific and permanent. To know God, then, is the Christian's first necessity. Eliphaz the Temanite admonished Job, "Acquaint now thyself with him [God], and be at peace." Jeremiah was so sure of mortals' need to know God that he recorded this message from the Lord: "They shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." Hosea, likewise, recognized mankind's necessity to know God, and expressed it in emphatic language.

Christ Jesus was so assured that salvation for mankind rests upon knowledge of God that he uttered words dearly cherished by Christians throughout the centuries: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." To the Prophet of Nazareth there was apparent both the possibility of knowing God and the necessity of understanding Him and His universe in order to gain eternal life.

Mrs. Eddy has also emphasized the need to know God, and the practical possibility of knowing Him, making clear that only by understanding God do we know man. "We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God," she states on page 258 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." How insistent, then, becomes the necessity to know God in order that we may gain some adequate understanding of man's true selfhood and identity as God's likeness.

Christian Scientists learn that knowledge of God furnishes the solution to every problem confronting humanity, even revealing the way to salvation and eternal life. The understanding of God is mankind's most precious possession. Moreover, since one's ideals determine his motives, his acts, and finally his character, it is very commonly recognized that upon a right concept of God depends the course of human experience. How, then, unless one understand God in some right degree, can he possibly possess these true ideals, which make for the highest and best in human experience?

In that extraordinary Scriptural exegesis, "The People's Idea of God" (p. 14), Mrs. Eddy says, "As our ideas of Deity become more spiritual, we express them by objects more beautiful;" and later in the same paragraph she continues, "Thus it is that our ideas of divinity form our models of humanity." What high incentives our Leader places before us in these words! How else may we improve our concepts of the true and beautiful, of the perfect and permanent, than by gaining clearer visions of God and His creation? Thereby, alone, do we improve our concepts of reality and progress toward a state of blessedness, gaining an ever higher vision of God's reflection, spiritual man. To know God and His likeness, man, is assuredly humanity's highest purpose,—its chiefest aim.

The Christian Scientist learns to reflect divine power through the prayer of understanding, that is, through right knowledge of God. The efficacy of prayer depends upon the degree of one's right understanding. "The unknown God," to whose worship Paul found an altar dedicated in Athens, becomes the understood Father, in whom man lives and has his being. It requires no argument to convince one that successful prayer must depend for its effectiveness upon a right concept of God. A false view of God could by no means enlist divine aid, or ally one with deific power. Then is not the first requisite to righteous prayer the gaining of some understanding of Him who doeth "all things well," of God, and His perfect universe?

The prayer which is answered is the prayer of understanding. It is not a blind supplication to a manlike God, but includes an intelligent affirmation based upon the assurance of God's infinite presence and power; of His allness and goodness; of His never changing love for His children. These are the invocations which bring fruitful results. Why? Because they are based upon spiritual truth; and so based, they destroy whatever is unlike Truth,—whatever false claims may undertake to present themselves as reality.

Reality appears as the clouds of false sense are dispelled. As our ideas of existence become more spiritual, the so-called matter world will seem progressively less real. As reality is revealed, of a necessity the unreality, the seeming, will disappear. As our knowledge of God as Life—of good—is enhanced, spirituality becomes more tangible, until Spirit is seen to be the only substance, unchanging and eternal. In this translation, material phenomena fade into their native substanceless shadows, for they have no entity.

What blessings accompany these stages of preparation is only known to those who make the journey from material beliefs to spiritual understanding. That the experience seems a difficult one does not lessen its necessity. And all may know that each step of unfoldment brings them nearer to that spiritual state of blessedness where suffering, sin, and sorrow are unknown. This is practical Christianity, the way of Life, mankind's greatest need.

Albert F. Gilmore

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"Truth makes man free"

July 5, 1924

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