Article August 27, 2012 Issue

Buoyed, not demoralized

Jill Johnston

One night I was thinking about the beatitude “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). As I prayed, I read these words from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “In the wilderness, streams flowed from the rock, and manna fell from the sky. . . . In national prosperity, miracles attended the successes of the Hebrews; but when they departed from the true idea, their demoralization began” (p. 133).

It struck me so forcibly that this “demoralization” has a lot to do with the challenges mankind is facing worldwide on many issues at this moment. The promise of a “land filled with milk and honey” (see Deuteronomy 31:20) sustained many people and countries in recent years when the value of houses and stock shares rocketed. But when there’s a focus on accumulating comfortable material possessions, doesn’t our thought gradually become beguiled into looking to matter rather than God as the source of satisfaction? Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son has a similar message: When the son, having left his father’s house with a sizable inheritance, wasted it on “riotous living” and became hungry, he had to “come to himself,” identify himself correctly, and turn back to his father for a true sense of supply and satisfaction (see Luke 15:11–24).

One of the definitions of righteous that I love and often use is “acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary). To me, that speaks to the uplift and inspiration that animates us when we ask God to direct our path. No wonder the prodigal son had become “de-moralized”—he had lost sight of God’s loving care!