Editorial December 5, 1925 Issue

Trusting God

Ella W. Hoag

Were most Christians asked the question, "Do you trust God?" they would probably answer with great vehemence, "Yes, indeed!" They have been educated to believe that to trust God is something essential to their welfare, and they have consequently accepted such trust as a fundamental necessity to all prosperity. If asked, however, as to what their trust in God means,—as to just how they trust Him,—the responses will very likely differ. The fact is that until Christian Science is accepted, few understand exactly what such trust implies; and further than to say that they expect God to deliver them in some perhaps unknown way from their difficulties, as well as to supply them with those things which they cannot obtain for themselves without His aid, they generally find it hard to define just what constitutes their trust in God.

All men have, deep down in their hearts, a consciousness that there must be some power to which they can look for relief in times of stress. It makes little difference how human belief may vaunt itself as capable for all things in and of itself; it is always aware that situations occur in every one's experience where self-importance and false independence prove themselves to be but broken reeds to rest upon. One who called himself an infidel once reverently said: "There come times in each one's life when he must cry out for help to some power outside of and above himself. If you call that power God, then I, too, believe in God ! "

No one could really hold a sense of existence for an instant were not God, who is infinite divine Life, constantly, continuously, ceaselessly, consciously causing each one of His children to express Him eternally. In "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 57) Mrs. Eddy writes, "All must be of God, and not our own, separated from Him." The most normally natural state for all men, then, is that which trusts everything to God; which relies absolutely and unquestioningly upon Him at all times, under all circumstances. In Proverbs we read: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

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