Article January 23, 1971 Issue

Close to God

AURIEL WYNDHAM ADAMS

One Sunday morning in church a beautiful solo proclaiming man's nearness to God was sung. In that peaceful atmosphere it was very easy to feel near to God, close to the source of all good, health, and happiness. However, not always do our daily lives provide us with a setting so conducive to feeling near to God. Sometimes, as in moments of distress or fear, we may feel very far from Him. We are liable to cry out, "Oh if only I could feel close to God, feel His presence with me!" thus echoing in modern phrase Job's plea, "Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!"^{Job 23:3;}

We are assured in Christian Science that the desire to be close to God, to feel His comfort and healing presence, can be fulfilled in everyone's life at this particular moment, this day.

How do we go about having this desire fulfilled? First, we may need to establish in thought just who God is and where He may be found. Clinging to a limited sense of God, thinking of Him as a superhuman being to whom we plead for favorable attention to our human affairs, does not give us a scientific sense of the Almighty. He is infinite Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, and to these Biblical names for Him Christian Science adds the significant term "Principle." If we are waiting like the man at the pool of Bethesda for a propitious or magical moment to be healed, or if we are wondering just when God is going to bring companionship or love into our lives, or enough wherewithal to be fed and clothed, then we are holding on to a limited, material concept of God. To understand that God, as the eternal Principle of our being, is supplying us with all good right now is to have a spiritual, demonstrable concept of Him.

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