Eliminating Poverty
Governments of many nations are today making earnest attempts to eliminate the evils of poverty. They have joined forces with the humanitarian and charitable agencies that have long struggled with this problem. The measure of their success will certainly be determined by the progress which individual citizens make in freeing themselves from a sense of lack. It is in the consciousness of each individual that the transition from want to abundance must take place.
Mankind have long been subject to the belief that there is not enough good in the world to go around. How can this belief be reconciled with the Bible statement that "God saw every thing that he iiad made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31)? It cannot. If God made all, including man, and all is good, there cannot be any lack of what is good, and all legitimate needs must be met through the abundance of God's loving provision.
Acting against poverty must be carried on not only on governmental, economic, and humanitarian fronts, but primarily on the mental battlefield where mankind's intelligent understanding of God meets and overcomes all suggestions that the divine Mind s loving provision for man can be less than complete and perfect.
All right-thinking individuals are enlisted in this effort to eliminate poverty. They cannot accept the belief that an infinite God has destined His image and likeness, man, to a life of lack and limitation. Such a life would not bear witness to the boundless capabilities and resources of man's loving Father—qualities which must belong to man, since they do to his Maker.
It was the understanding of God's abundant provision for man that brought manna to the Israelites in the wilderness, food to Elijah by the brook Cherith, bread for the hundred men whom Elisha fed in Gilgal, and ample nourishment for the five thousand men, with women and children, whom Christ Jesus fed with five loaves and two fishes. These apparently miraculous instances of divine supply were not isolated phenomena, which could never be duplicated, but manifestations of the ever-presence of Mind's enduring and limitless provision for man. They are to be viewed in the light which Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of
Christian Science, throws upon them when she says in ''Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 29 ), "Miracles are no infraction of God's laws; on the contrary, they fulfil His laws; for they are the signs following Christianity, whereby matter is proven powerless and subordinate to Mind."
In a universe created by the infinite good, which is God, there can be no place for pockets of poverty, large or small. Poverty is an evil, a belief in the absence of good. It cannot persist when or where men gain a proper concept of God. As Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 469 ), "We bury the sense of infinitude, when we admit that, although God is infinite, evil has a place in this infinity, for evil can have no place, where all space is filled with God."
Why should we "bury the sense of infinitude" and be satisfied with a belief in limitation and lack? There is no need to do so. It costs no more in time or effort to conceive of supply as abundant than to conceive of it as limited and insufficient. The change in our thinking on this subject can be made instantaneously. It can lift us at once out of the slough of doubt or despondency into the clear air of hope, faith, and understanding. And this change of thought can be reflected in our daily experience as we travel the road from want to plenty.
Through increased enlightenment, mankind are proceeding from an economy of scarcity to an economy of abundance. In the United States and some other countries, agricultural production has advanced from shortages to surpluses, and industries are sometimes plagued with what is described as overproduction. But in the divine economy there is neither shortage nor surplus but only a perfect balance of supply and demand.
Many thousands of earnest peoplethroughout the world have found in Christian Science the way to solve their financial problems. Their testimonies to this effect are to be heard in the Wednesday testimony meetings of Christian Science churches everywhere and can be read among the testimonies of healing published in the Christian Science periodicals.
These are success stories in the fullest sense of the term, for they invariably indicate that those who had these experiences not only solved a problem of financial supply but also enriched themselves by an increased comprehension of spiritual truth, which they can use in solving problems of health, of human relations, or of any other difficulty that may seem to confront them.
Through enlarged understanding of God's infinite supply for His children, we are enabled to give more freely to those who seem to be in need. Not only can we give money or things, but, what is even more important we can give of our understanding which has supplied our own needs.
This is what the Apostles Peter and John did at one of the gates of the temple in Jerusalem, as related m the third chapter of Arts. A poor beggar, who had been lame from birth, asked an alms of them. Peter said to him, "Silver and gold have I none: but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." And immediately the man was healed.
Thus Peter showed that greater riches than money were his, and he gave them in the form that brought the greatest blessing to the lame man: the restoration of his health and strength. The invalid beggar was transformed into a joyous, active person capable of fulfilling his right place in human affairs and even of helping others. Spiritual giving does not cease with the first gift; it propagates itself in continuing beneficence.
Individuals, communities, and governments can best deal with the problem of poverty by following the example of Peter. First, by realizing, as he did, that the resources of divine Love are ample for meeting every human need; secondly, by seeing that a need is met, not necessarily through profuse spending but through gracious provision of the immediate necessity, which will enable the recipient to help himself; and thirdly, by acknowledging that all good comes from God.
