Article August 9, 1924 Issue

The Things We Need

KATHERINE PUFFER

PERHAPS no part of Jesus' teaching is of more practical benefit to mankind than the wonderful utterances contained in the Sermon on the Mount. This marvelous discourse covers every human need—all the varying phases of mortal existence, its difficulties and the way out of them. Probably none of those utterances have been more difficult to understand in their spiritual significance than the instructions relating to daily supply. How, for example, can one take no thought for what he shall eat, and yet be provident? How can God know our need, if He, being ever conscious divine Mind, knows only good? How can God, who is Spirit, know material things? These are some of the questions every earnest student asks. Do not the questions arise because we are trying to understand these statements from a material standpoint?

Before studying Christian Science, and even for some time after, the writer always thought the teaching referred to meant that God knows the need, because she read into it her own material sense of things, rather than reading out of it the spiritual truth it contained; namely, that God knows the spiritual things we have need of. This truth is repeated by Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 507), where she says, "Spirit duly feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line of spiritual creation." God knows each idea; and this knowing means that it is supplied with all it needs for its existence, activity, and usefulness. This being the case, man, himself idea, can no more supply than he can create; he continues to reflect God and His abundance. What is necessary for each of Mind's ideas exists in divine Mind; and idea cannot be separated from all that is essential to its continuity. Is it not the striving for the things, rather than seeking to gain the spiritual sense of reality, which hampers and hinders mankind from accepting what Love has already supplied, from utilizing God's infinite gifts?

Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 307), "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies." How plain, then, that it is spiritual ideas we need! Furthermore, there ceases to be a need when we have right ideas. Abundance and lack are as opposite as light and darkness; and they cannot exist together. Lack is a false mental sense; abundance is a spiritual fact. Lack is a result of fear; abundance is the expression of infinite good. A true sense of spirituality is the greatest wealth one can obtain; it is the knowledge that substance is Spirit, Mind, not material things. Can there be richer consciousness than that? It enabled Jesus to walk on the water and to take money from the fish's mouth, to still the tempest, and to heal the sick.

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