Editorial June 29, 1974 Issue

Unfailing Joy

Carl J. Welz

The difference between joy that fails us and joy that never fails is the difference between living to be served and living to serve. And this is the difference between real success and failure in any phase of human experience.

Christian Science reveals the nature of God as the divine Principle of man, as divine Love whom man reflects, as infinite Mind in whom and of whom man is the idea. We can demonstrate God's nature in our human experience as we come to understand that we have no basis for living, no cause or Principle, but God. We have nothing to love and no love to feel or express but divine Love. We have no consciousness of existence, no intelligence, but in and of the one Mind.

Realizing the nature of God and His importance to us does not take from us the joys of human life—of achievement, of fulfillment, affection, possession, honor, and so forth. It removes from all human joys only what is worthless, undependable, unreal. But the nature of God is such that our transformation from dependence upon human joys to the realization of divine and eternal joys never leaves us comfortless. Mary Baker Eddy writes of this in the chapter on Marriage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven."^{Science and Health, p. 57;}