Article August 26, 1944 Issue

True Reverence

JACK-DART RICHARDS

Reverence for God is more than sitting quietly and respectfully in church with folded hands and bowed head, or thinking of God on Sundays and religious holidays. It is more than refraining from profane speech. It is more than all these outward things. Though the knee is bent and the wording eloquent, no prayer is reverent unless it is honest and sincere in spiritual values. True reverence looks up and not down. It sees and knows its standard and then holds to it. Reverence shows its love and respect for God by giving Him the glory for all good, and trusting Him implicitly.

Christian Science has defined God as Life, Truth, and Love. These terms denote emphatically that God is good. It is natural to turn to God when we know He is all-embracing good. But we do well to trust God understandingly, to be certain that dependence on the Supreme Being is not blind faith; that as an individual we are seeing for ourselves what God is and what He does for His creation. We must know Him, and know that we know Him!

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has written (Unity of Good, p. 13), "Men must approach God reverently, doing their own work in obedience to divine law, if they would fulfil the intended harmony of being." Christ Jesus, by his lifework, is the Why-shower of the truly reverent approach to God. His love for God was so replete with understanding that he was fully endowed with the Christ, Truth. Mrs. Eddy's reverence for the Father helped to prepare her thought to receive God's revelation, which she has given to mankind in Christian Science. This Science reveals man in his true status as the image and likeness of God.

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