An Undivided Heart

Ella W. Hoag

"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, ... ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." So came the word of God to Jeremiah centuries ago, and it is no less true now than then. No one to-day, any more than in the olden prophet's time, need imagine that anything less than an undivided heart can experience the bliss of acquaintance with God. Jesus emphasized the same truth when in his incomparable Sermon on the Mount he declared, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

How this proclamation of our Master has pursued and rebuked every attempt of error to attach itself to good, to hide itself in any way under the guise of righteousness, to deceive any one into believing that there is anything to be desired outside of God! To be sure, mankind has gone right on thinking it can unite good and evil, truth and error, and still succeed in its undertakings; but every effort to do this has finally resulted in failure.

In spite of this, all Christians in their innermost hearts have wanted to live in accordance with Jesus' injunction; but many have wondered why they did not do it more successfully. At times their endeavors have brought some degree of satisfactory accomplishment, only perhaps to be followed by even more pronounced defeat. Many a one after long years of struggle to be true to God and render no allegiance to mammon has wept over his apparent failure to win the victory he so earnestly has sought. He did not know that all the time he had failed to understand how to keep his heart undivided. Paul, however, said, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." He was certain he had been able to serve God alone!

When God gave Christian Science to the world, with its explanation of the teachings and practice of both Jesus and Paul, it opened the way to the singleness of purpose and desire which must always be embraced if perfect loyalty to God is to result and association with Him is to be realized. When it was revealed to Mrs. Eddy, our beloved Leader, that God is indeed infinite good, and that this good alone is real and desirable, the gate of heaven was opened wide to all men. In direct line with Jesus' own words and in clear explanation of them, she wrote in "Unity of Good" (p. 49): "You cannot simultaneously serve the mammon of materiality and the God of spirituality. There are not two realities of being, two opposite states of existence. One should appear real to us, and the other unreal, or we lose the Science of being."

Here then is the way to an undivided heart: to recognize that in God, Spirit, infinite good, is all that can be desired, and then refuse to believe in the reality of aught else. Now when one desires something in a whole-hearted manner he gives his entire thought and effort to its attainment. He brings every lesser purpose into subjection to the one all-absorbing aim. The more beautiful the vision the deeper the desire that it may be realized.

Who has not longed to have his heart thus fully fixed on all that is good and true; on that which is noble and grand; on the perfect love that casteth out all fear; in the alone consciousness of blessedness and peace, of health and harmony and holiness. The way is made plain in Christian Science to the winning of a heart thus wholly given to good, a heart all undivided in its allegiance to God. It is just to cling always to good,—to declare for good, to love good, to believe only in good, to express only good! It is to have all one's motives, affections, joys, purposes, desires,—all fixed in good! This is to give God our whole heart!

The heart thus undivided is certain that all its interests are inseparable from God. It will always be aware of His all-presence and all-power and of its own ability to reflect them. It can trust all results to God's care, since it is confident that He will direct all for His own glorification. Surely it is worth sacrificing all unreality to gain such unalloyed confidence in good as a heart thus consecrated must possess. With all of good on one side and only the nothingness of nothing on the other, an undivided heart, a heart at-one with God, may certainly be proved a present possibility. Then let us all press on to its speedy attainment!

Ella W. Hoag

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