Abiding Joy

LULU W. CRUM

"Your joy no man taketh from you." Thus ran one of the final promises given by Christ Jesus to his disciples as they supped together in the large upper room on the evening before his crucifixion. The new student of Christian Science sometimes puzzles over this assurance, which is frequently quoted, and which, he observes, brings much comfort and consolation to other students. How, he questions, can anyone help being affected by the things that happen about him? How can he escape being made sad or at least slightly unhappy by what other people say or do, when their words and actions touch his own life closely and vitally?

If he seeks the answers to his questions through a careful, faithful study of the Christian Science textbooks, the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, he soon discovers that what he had heretofore considered joy is not really joy at all, but merely a counterfeit, an illusion. He learns that true joy is spiritual, not material, as he had supposed it to be. He comes to understand that the joy of which Jesus spoke to his disciples at that passover supper was spiritual joy.

Having learned the falsity of that material condition which claims to be joy, the student then turns his attention to the discernment of the true spiritual quality and to the understanding of why it is impossible for this to be taken from him. Through a careful study of his textbooks he learns to regard man not as material, but as "God's spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal" (Science and Health, p. 115). He also learns that "man is, and forever has been, God's reflection" (ibid., p. 471). He learns that man, "God's spiritual idea," reflects all the qualities of God as the sunbeam reflects all the qualities of the sun. He learns that God is the source of all joy, and that man reflects this quality of God. He learns that scientifically it is as impossible for man, "God's spiritual idea," to reflect anything unlike joy as it is impossible for a sunbeam to reflect anything unlike light. Carrying the analogy farther, the student learns that it is as impossible for one spiritual idea to detract in any manner from the joy reflected by another spiritual idea as it is for one sunbeam to detract from the light reflected by another sunbeam.

As these glorious truths dawn in his consciousness, the student understands how the promise made by Jesus is just as true and demonstrable today as it was nineteen hundred years ago. And, having learned the true nature of joy, he knows that it can never be taken from him in the slightest degree by any person, place, or circumstance, but that his joy abides with him forever.

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