There's an enormous difference—between knowing God and knowing about Him. Consider the story of Job in the Bible.

Job is a good man, "a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil," ^{Job 1:8.} the narrative says. Yet, apparently with God's permission, Satan smites Job—destroying his possessions, killing his sons and daughters, and plaguing him with awful disease.

In the fires of this living hell, knowing God and His divine purpose becomes far more than an interesting point of theological discussion! It's literally a matter of life and death. Job's extremity forces him to confront as never before life's greatest question: Who or what is God and what is my relationship to Him? Job cries in anguish: "Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands ...?" ^{Job 10:2, 3.}

Now Job is not alone in his trial. Good friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—and finally Elihu—try to help him. They mean well, but utterly fail. And in their very failure we may learn a great lesson: Words about God, however true and righteous, are not the same as the actual consciousness of His living presence. Words about God are not Him, and it is only "God with us," Immanuel, that heals.

If we study the words of Job's pious friends, we see that they are, in statement, words of truth. They praise God for His righteousness, His goodness, justice, mercy, and forgiveness. But in the context of the story, and in the mouths of these friends, the words evoke no healing power or proof of the divine presence.

No wonder poor Job retorts to his friends with heavy sarcasm, "How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? ... Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend." ^{Job 6:25, 27.} Mere words about God, words without a corresponding spiritual consciousness or demonstrated reflection of Him, may indeed dig a pit for those we would help through prayer and Christian Science treatment.

This is not to imply that inspired use of the letter of divine Science doesn't have its proper, even vital function in Christian Science practice. But Mrs. Eddy does caution in Science and Health, "Remember that the letter and mental argument are only human auxiliaries to aid in bringing thought into accord with the spirit of Truth and Love, which heals the sick and the sinner." ^{Science and Health, pp. 454–455.} The letter must always be the humble servant of the Christ-spirit in us. "Human auxiliaries" are always means to an end, and that end is knowing God Himself in the individualized reflection of His being.

Actually, if our sense of unity with the Father is sufficient, "Stretch forth thine hand" ^{Matt. 12:13.} could be effective verbal treatment, as it was for our Master, Christ Jesus. For healing, what is needed is Immanuel, "God with us"—the individual demonstration of Life, Truth, and Love, made manifest in Christlike qualities. As Science and Health, the textbook of scientific Mind-healing, explains, "The poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness." ^{Science and Health, pp. 365–366.}

And further on in the same chapter, "Christian Science Practice," the textbook states, "The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love." ^{Ibid., p. 367.}

Isn't the great necessity of both practitioner and patient to imbibe deeply that "priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness?" Isn't the need to feel "God with us"—to spiritually sense that man is inseparable from God as His reflection? Surely this is what Job has been craving for, not "gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments." And his deep, heartfelt desire, or prayer, is finally answered—by divine manifestation, Immanuel.

When the actual glory, majesty, and might of God's living presence finally break in upon Job's suffering sense, this is sufficient for him. The problem of evil—its seeming origin and reality—dissolves, a Christian Scientist would explain, in the realization, or individual reflection, of divine Love's omnipotence and ever-presence, which excludes any sense of evil. Then Job says, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee." ^{Job 42:5.}

"Now mine eye seeth thee"! Glorious moment of healing! There is enough reality in this one glimpse of God to bring out in Job's experience a higher sense of Life and substance than he has ever known before. All that he has lost—his health, family, and wealth—are restored. "So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning." ^{Job 42:12.}

We may never experience the thunderous theophany of a Job, or of a Moses on Mount Horeb, but our earnest prayer and treatment should, and can, always culminate in a deep sense of "now mine eye seeth thee"—now I spiritually see Your all-substance and reality, my God and my Life, and I am healed and restored. Then we feel within our hearts His eternal reflection—our true selfhood—crying, "Abba, Father"! Then we sense, even if only for a moment, the infinite tenderness and love our Father-Mother has for His magnificent creation, man, including the universe.

We should never settle for less than "God with us," whether in specific metaphysical treatment or in our daily living. Our primal, eternal relationship is not with the human mind's belief in God. Nor is it with elaborate so-called metaphysical systems, or grand intellectual theories about God erected by the human mind. God is real! He exists! Our relationship is with Him—conscious Mind, the one Ego, who defines Himself to His creation and gives man conscious identity, being, purpose, and activity.

God both knows and has pleasure in His creation, and His creation reflects this consciousness and eternally rejoices in it. Indeed, man is conscious of God because God is conscious of man. Jesus himself made this clear when he said, "As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father" ^{John 10:15.} and, "The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." ^{John 8:29.} The spiritual fact is that God always has His spiritual man to know and love, and His obedient reflex image always glories in pleasing Him—in expressing original Life, Truth, and Love.

When we get intellectual theorizing about God out of the way and yearningly seek to know and obey our conscious creator, we find Him. We come to feel, in the very fiber of our being, that God knows us as we are in Science—His conscious creation, forever individual, forever imaging Him as He is. To the degree we demonstrate Him, to the degree our lives attest His nature, we know He is real and rejoice in Him as the very "I" of our being.

In answer to the question "Do you believe in God?" Mrs. Eddy writes: "I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I have no faith in any other thing or being. He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my individuality and my Life. Because He lives, I live. He heals all my ills, destroys my iniquities, deprives death of its sting, and robs the grave of its victory." ^{Unity of Good, p. 48.}

How we all need to cultivate this higher sense of God and our relationship to Him! How we need the felt sense of God's hereness and nowness and of our unity with Him as the very evidence of His being and doing! And the sincere seeker after God can have this glorified consciousness, for God Himself imparts it. As the Bible tells us, "The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you." ^{II Chron. 15:2.} The feeling that God is real—that He is knowable, that He loves us, guides us, nurtures us, knows us—originates in the very nature of things. It is not something we outgrow with increasing metaphysical maturity. But God's reality is only felt by bringing our thoughts and lives into conformity with Christ, for only the Son knows the Father and feels His love and pleasure.

This sense of God being our loving creator—yes, our very individuality and Life—grows and ever grows as our lives become more Christlike. Our sense of "God with us" can ultimately expand into a sense of complete at-one-ment with Him as His creative expression. In this unity we cannot lose our distinct identity, but find it in the bliss of individual creation without end, the eternal unfolding of Mind in man, the everlasting communion of Father and son, Mother and child.