Article August 25, 1928 Issue

Delighting in God

MARY H. CUMMINS

In the thirty-seventh psalm we find a conditional promise the importance of which is perhaps not always realized by students of Christian Science: "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." At first one may ask how delighting in God can bring one his heart's desires; and, of course, if these desires were not in accord with holiness, it would not do so. The ability to delight one's self in God, however, is proof that one's desires are becoming purified; and, not infrequently, the result of such delighting is that the individual finds the hidden selfish or unideal desire uncovered and eliminated, and the real desire for righteousness so strengthened and increased that, quite naturally, it obtains its own fulfillment.

Here the thought may present itself: Yes, I can delight in God when this problem with which I am confronted, and which seems so real to me, is solved—this belief of lack, this business entanglement, this inharmonious domestic condition, this manifestation of disease. Sooner or later, however, we learn that we cannot bargain with divine Mind. Delighting in God, in the glorious reality of His infinite goodness and love, and in the real man's indestructible relationship to Him as the "beloved Son" in whom He is "well pleased," must come first, whatever the evidence of the senses may be. If, as yet, this delight cannot even be called delight, if it be still only a gleam, a dawning sense of gladness in what God is and is to us, a golden shaft of hope which has entered our consciousness, even this first ray, steadfastly cherished and followed, will expand and grow until the sunshine of delight in God, regardless of outward circumstances, floods our heart with its healing beams.

Surely it was their ability to delight in God, in spite of the testimony of physical sense, which enabled Paul and Silas to sing praises to God in the prison at Philippi, even while their feet were fast in the stocks and their backs lacerated by the Roman scourge. "At midnight," we read, "Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened and every one's bands were loosed." What a demonstration of the far-reaching power of Truth rejoicingly declared! Not alone were the apostles themselves released, but all who were within sound of their voices were also loosed from their bonds. Nor did any time elapse between this disinterested expression of praise to God and its truly marvelous effect, showing that material bonds have no power when the liberty of the sons of God is fully realized.

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