Article November 18, 1939 Issue

Our Loaves and Fishes

ELSIE DEANE

Frequently, one who has been studying Christian Science for a period and, having experienced its healing and regenerative powers, has gone on humbly and gratefully seeking to gain more and more understanding of this blessed truth, awakens suddenly to find that he is filled with a desire to enter more fully into the service of the Cause which he has espoused. He has already begun to see that in his true being he is an essential part of the divine plan; that he exists because, as a spiritual idea, he is necessary to God, since man is His expression. Further, he realizes that his true work does not consist of just "doing jobs" each day, but in expressing the ceaseless activity of Mind.

It is at this point, perhaps, that the student begins to look around him with eyes no longer so much blinded by selfishness, and to become increasingly aware of the great need for healing that seems to exist everywhere—in his home circle, in his business, and in the world beyond. He is perhaps overwhelmed with the longing to help in healing baffled, suffering humanity out of the maze where it seems to be wandering unaided. Faced with such thought, the Scientist is inclined sometimes to ask, What can I do where the need is so great? and then to fall into the temptation of wishing that he had been given, perhaps, a better education; or that latent talents had been given more chance of developing; or that he had more of this world's goods wherewith to further God's work. But pondering prayerfully the story in Acts of Peter and John at the gate Beautiful, the student learns that these God-inspired apostles, although without the "silver and gold" which the lame man thought were his first requirement, were yet able to discern his real need and to heal him instantaneously. Thus there dawns increasingly upon his thought the great fact that our ability to serve God and uplift humanity does not depend upon material possessions or mere academic qualifications. We all have the God-bestowed ability to understand and demonstrate Christian Science, if we desire to do so. We need to realize the abiding good resulting from every right thought and every temptation overcome, and the necessity for keeping our thoughts constantly subordinated to divine Truth. Each awakening to the demands of Love is followed inevitably by a renewed consecration of thought and a deeper thirsting after righteousness.

A student of Christian Science was greatly helped by a study of the familiar Gospel story of the loaves and fishes. She saw that in her mistaken sense of having so little to offer, of talents or riches or spiritual understanding, she was in much the same position as the disciples, who had at hand only "five barley loaves, and two small fishes," wherewith to feed a multitude. The question, "But what are they among so many?" was echoed in her own thought, and the remark that not even two hundred pence, considerable wealth to men of their simple needs, would buy sufficient bread for such a multitude, indicated her own sense of helplessness and inadequacy in face of the moral demands which seemed to be pressing on her.

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