Article January 5, 1935 Issue

"Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed"

[Original article in German]

ROSA FREI

IN the book of the prophet Jeremiah we find the reiterated complaint that his people seek help from the wrong source. They forsake the living fountain of waters, and hew out broken cisterns; they put their trust in men and walk without God. Not only of ancient Israel was this true; we today are in the same danger. We easily forget that all our troubles are due to our estrangement from God, and that only by returning to Him can we find help. But instead of doing so, we turn to all kinds of material palliatives and economic innovations. They do not bring the help we need; this comes from God.

To this end, however, God must be to us great and holy. We must have not merely thoughts about God, a blind faith, but the comforting conviction that He is the governing, operating, and eternally loving One. If we experience but little of His help, this is due to our unbelief and ignorance. The less we expect from Him, the less we realize of His ever-present help. We read of all the wonderful help from God received by Moses and the children of Israel; of how He delivered Daniel from the lions' den, and the three men from the fiery furnace. We read of how Christ Jesus brought help to the lame man, to the nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum, to Jairus, and to many others who in their distress came to him with such firm faith that they, or those for whom they sought his aid, were healed.

In the past, in the present, and in the future, God was and is and always will be ever faithful, ever good. It remains for us to find freedom, comfort, and peace in Him. There dwells in us all a yearning for happiness, a desire for peace; and it is only because we seek in the wrong place that we are not able to compass our desires. Our longing for the kingdom of heaven finds no satisfaction in the material hustle and bustle. Many of us sigh under the burden of our seeking, which does not resolve into finding, because we are hewing out broken cisterns and do not hear the rush of the living fountain; because we do not recognize that Love is the creator of man, and that God's spiritual offspring has his abode in the realm of reality and perfect harmony, where no shadow of disappointment, sorrow, or pain can prevent the joyous unfoldment of good. On pages 574 and 575 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes of the "angel entertained unawares" when "thought gently whispers: 'Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb's wife,—Love wedded to its own spiritual idea.' "

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