Article February 25, 1967 Issue

Religion as Fulfillment

JOHN A. THOMASSON

Where has anyone ever found greater peace and satisfaction than in that beautiful sense of true fulfillment which eliminates frustration, envy, and futility? Many may be continuing a seemingly fruitless quest for this state; others may merely have had brief glimpses of it. That it seems elusive to most persons accounts for much of the restlessness in the world. Yet many years before Christ Jesus' time a spiritually-minded prophet could refer to God as saying, "As the rain cometh down ... and ... watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud ... so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please."^{Isa. 55:10, 11;}

We all rightly wish the personal fulfillment and security of being loved, needed, and able to help others. In addition we rightly desire a full, satisfying, and stimulating lifework. Can one through religion gain both personal and career fulfillment in today's world with its ever-expanding population and ever-increasing automation? Since the social structure is inevitably pyramidal, the incentives, hopes, and desires common to us all would in many instances appear to conflict. The Psalmist, though, declared, "Thouopenest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing."^{Ps. 145:16;}

This promise does not allow for our being hopelessly lost in the anonymity of a burgeoning population. Where God is known, no unloved, unwanted, unimportant individual exists. Here is no indifferent impersonality of a remotely controlled machinelike operation. Quite rightly one rebels against the prospect of anything that would seem to extinguish his individuality. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, assures us, "Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity."^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 70;}

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