Don't Forget the Gate!

VIRGINIA F. DUNN

Gratitude is the gate in our wall of salvation. It lets love in and out. It blesses us and gives us opportunity to bless others.

In the Bible we read, "Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise."^{Isa. 60:18;} We should be sure that as we build our wall of salvation we don't forget to make the gate! Without praise for God, without gratitude, we may be building a solid wall with blocks of self-righteousness; and a wall without a gate can become a prison. So a gate is necessary — a gate of praise for our heavenly Father, God.

Sometimes we may seem to pray without success for healing or for guidance. Often what is needed is gratitude. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more." In the next paragraph she continues, "If we are ungrateful for Life, Truth, and Love, and yet return thanks to God for all blessings, we are insincere and incur the sharp censure our Master pronounces on hypocrites."^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 3;} So, if a healing seems slow, perhaps we should widen our gates of praise.

Being grateful for the good already received calls for much more than just listing material possessions, such as a sufficient bank account or a comfortable house. These—nice as they may be—are manifestations of good appearing to limited human thought. Real good cannot be localized or limited. We cannot limit good to a place, confine it to a circumstance, or make it into a person. Good is God and therefore impersonal and unlimited by time or place. When we recognize this, we need no longer be fearful, jealous, or discouraged, and our gate of gratitude grows wider and is opened more easily. We can be grateful for the lake but even more grateful for the spring that is its source. We can be grateful first for infinite, changeless good, God—Life, Truth, and Love—and then for its expression.

When we are really grateful for Life, Truth, and Love, we are obedient to the first commandment; and we love God because He is and for what He is, not just for what He has done for us. This gratitude is not only acknowledgment of past proofs of God's goodness but also willingness to learn the lessons of the moment and confidence in His government of the future. Such gratitude includes trusting God before we have seen the proofs of His power. Healing does not precede confidence in God. Confidence in God precedes healing. Gratitude includes faith, and faith includes gratitude.

When the nobleman asked Christ Jesus to heal his son who was dying, Jesus told him, "Go thy way; thy son liveth." The nobleman obeyed because he "believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him."^{John 4:50.} His son was healed immediately. But the nobleman "went his way," gratefully and trustingly, a day before he knew of his son's healing.

If we can turn to the Christ, Truth, accept what the Christ shows us of the power of Love, and go our way confident of the infinity of Life, we can be sure our gratitude to God is sincere. Our healings come as we are thankful for Life, Truth, and Love, because then our gate of gratitude and praise is widened to see good in all of God's creation.

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