Article November 9, 1935 Issue

The Protection of Giving

EVELYN WEBB SUMNER

"EVERY good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Giving is a divine activity. God ceaselessly gives both to and through His reflection, man; and as the rays of the sun give forth the light which is given to them from the sun, so individual man reflects the divine loveliness and substance which God gives to him. Can there be any place where the divine activity of giving can cease? We know there cannot be, since man exists to express God, the Giver of all good.

In all the divine universe of heavenly giving and reflecting, the sense of getting as applied to self-seeking is unknown. There is nothing Godlike in that attitude of thought; therefore, it must be a false belief. The Christian Scientist needs to be most watchful so that any thought of self-seeking shall be at once detected as a deterrent to spiritual progress, and dismissed from consciousness. Love "seeketh not her own."

Someone may ask, Am I never to expect a reward for faithful service? Yes, God rewards faithfulness. That is part of the divine giving, God's giving, and is ours to demonstrate. It was God who inspired the widow woman to sustain Elijah, and Elijah to sustain the widow. But if we were to work for material or personal reward, the false motive of self-seeking would at once hinder the good that we might otherwise do, for our service would be divorced from God, would lose the inspiration of reality, and receive no spiritual reward. "A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven." And there is no real joy apart from giving, for all joy is spiritual; and the moment one receives spiritual blessings, the spontaneous act must be to express that joy, it cannot be kept to oneself.

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