Article April 5, 1982 Issue

Deep, inner peace

ISABEL F. BATES

We can't count on others to give us inner peace. Certainly money can't buy it. Merely personal assets and success won't bring it; neither will a change of location or work. But when the heart, humble and alone with God, turns wholly to Him, the mental clamor begins to fade. Our lives move further in the direction of blessing others. The understanding grows that every right thought we have, every unselfish, God-directed thing we do, indicates God's evidencing of Himself and the fact that we are sustained and prospered by His love. We realize a closeness with Him that nothing can disturb. Then inner peace abounds.

In a message to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, Mrs. Eddy declares: "O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm." ^{Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 19.} Do we have to wait for conditions to become ideal before we can claim dominion and calm? No. Did Christ Jesus have to wait for the crowds to give way before he could say to the palsied man, "Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house," ^{Luke 5:24.} or wait for food to be purchased before he could feed the multitudes? Even while hanging on the cross, the beloved Way-shower could say, with a poise beyond human conception, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." ^{23:34 .}

"Peace I leave with you," was his message to his followers in all ages, "my peace I give unto you.... Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." ^{John 14:27.}

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