God Satisfies the Desires

Ella W. Hoag

All men are longing to have their desires satisfied. Indeed, ordinary human existence seems made up largely of formulating desires and then working to bring about their gratification. The happiness or discontent of the world is supposed to be almost entirely dependent upon the fulfillment or failure of the heart's desires. And yet, how numerous are the unsatisfied longings, even when one's fondest wishes appear to have been carried out completely! How many are the earthly purposes fulfilled which bring only bitterness and disappointment! Men sometimes spend years in an endeavor to achieve a greatly desired end, only to find that the winning of the goal is but the destruction, rather than the attainment, of any real satisfaction.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 257) Mrs. Eddy exposes the reason for all this failure when she asks the question, "Who hath found finite life or love sufficient to meet the demands of human want and woe,—to still the desires, to satisfy the aspirations?" And on pages 60 and 61 she proclaims the remedy for all dissatisfaction when she declares: "Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real enjoyment." All this agrees with the Psalmist when he tells us that he will be satisfied when he awakes in God's likeness, since he was sure that God satisfies "the desire of every living thing."

To the Christian Scientist all this is quite clear theoretically; for even though he may have grasped only some small portion of the letter of Christian Science, nevertheless its inexorable logic assures him that since God includes all good, nothing truly satisfying can be found outside of that good. It is, however, one thing to accept this logically and quite another to turn continually from sense to Soul for all profit and pleasure. And why? Because "finite life or love" are still sometimes deemed by him sufficient "to still the desires, to satisfy the aspirations." The voice of material sense has not yet been fully silenced; but instead, it would still insist to him that it does give that which is desirable.

Right here is the battle ground where the Scientist must win his victories. Right here, however, is also the wonderful truth that God alone can and does satisfy "the desire of every living thing." No least one is left out, for all are embraced in His munificent, all-powerful love! And the way to prove it is to cling persistently to this truth until it is realized! One would think that the reward is great enough and the method sufficiently simple for all to accept and practice the method immediately; and all true students of Christian Science endeavor to do this.

At first all goes well with such students. Their new vision—the glorious glimpses of good which come to them through the healing, redemptive ministrations of the beloved Science—induces them to believe that their hearts are entirely won to Soul and its "infinite resources" with their power to bless; that never again will they be deceived into turning to the world and its allurements, against which John warned all men when he said so positively: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

It is at this point of apparent security in their loyalty to Soul that Christian Scientists must constantly be on guard if they are continually to let go of the beliefs in a material sense of good and demonstrate in ever increasing measure that God, Soul, does indeed hold all that is to be desired. The temptation to sit down, contented with a temporal, personal sense of good, will claim to recur and recur until spiritual good is so loved that all of "finite life or love" shall have been relinquished.

And what untold joy should such progress as this include,—the joy which constantly attends the unfolding of the beauty and wonder and loveliness of the realities of God! As we advance along this way we shall realize the truth of our Leader's precious statement in "Pulpit and Press" (p. 3), where she says: "The river of His pleasures is a tributary of divine Love, whose living waters have their source in God, and flow into everlasting Life. We drink of this river when all human desires are quenched, satisfied with what is pleasing to the divine Mind."

Ella W. Hoag

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