Article July 25, 1942 Issue

Finding God

KATHERINE PUFFER

From out the welter of material experience, from the depths of human woe and suffering, Job cried, "Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!" Under the strain of prolonged physical ills, the loss of possessions, the continued reproach of friends, Job's thought was seeking after God as a refuge from distress, and he preserved his hope and faith in Him. In the larger glimpse of the justice and righteousness of God which Job gained, he became conscious of God's presence, and the shackles of fear and distress were broken. God said to him, "Gird up now thy loins like a man." In this fuller recognition of God's goodness, despair and doubt were dispelled. At last triumphantly, joyously, came his response, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee." Through this simple, joyous process of finding God, honor, health, possessions were restored to Job.

Does not this clearly picture the experience of each one who turns to Christian Science for help and healing? Mary Baker Eddy writes (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 322): "The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life in divine Science. Without this process of weaning, 'Canst thou by searching find out God?'" False teachings of God's wrath and punishment of sin have hid from us the nature of our heavenly Father. Belief in the reality of matter and its accompanying limitations, hates, and fears has darkened thought, obscuring the spiritual sense of being. The evidence of material sense is accepted as constituting true existence. As a result, God is unknown and in many instances unsought. Acceptance of the false teaching that God sends sickness hinders one from gaining the right approach to God. Mrs. Eddy, referring to the First Commandment, writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 5), "For man to be thoroughly subordinated to this commandment, God must be intelligently considered and understood." He must be understood as divine, infinite Love, if we would reason correctly concerning Him. He must be seen as Spirit, if we would reason from the basis of Spirit, and thus gain the true understanding of existence as spiritual, see matter as unreal, and sin and disease powerless.

Before the light of Christian Science was brought to the writer she was in the slough of mental and physical suffering such as was experienced by Job. She no longer cared to listen to the teaching that God sent sickness—scant comfort in her hour of great need!—and believed herself to be an infidel. As the teaching of Christian Science became clearer, with the joyousness, the exhilaration of a new hope she could declare with Job, "Now mine eye seeth thee." False theology, material remedies and beliefs were cast aside. Thought unfettered apprehended the spiritual heights where God was recognized as Mind, infinite good, expressed through spiritual ideas. Man spiritual, well, holy! She had found God, and finding Him, had found her true selfhood in Him. The certainty of the truth of Christian Science was impressed upon her consciousness, together with the power of demonstration.

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