The joy of knowing that you are loved and cared for by the Father—there's nothing else like it! When we know, really know, that God is with us, we're free. We no longer feel bound up by all the mundane cares and worries of human existence. And such a spiritual freedom allows us to be of greater service to God and mankind in the ways that truly count for something.

God's blessing is a wonderful, ever-widening thing. For as we begin to understand how richly and impartially our Father is bestowing His good on all of His children, we find that the blessings we receive actually impel us to bless others. God's benediction doesn't just come to our own doorstep and sit there. It is to be received into our hearts and shared.

Referring to the occasions in the Bible when Christ Jesus fed thousands with an amount of food that normally would have provided for only a handful of people, ^{See Matt. 14:15–21; 15:32–38} Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply." ^{Science and Health, p. 206 .}

Yet some may ask how anyone can assert that God's goodness is being poured out on each of His children equally, with abundance, when there is so much human evidence to the contrary. In every society there seem to be those who have more than others; and in some areas of the world there are those who have virtually nothing, not even the basic necessities of human life.

But to count blessings accurately requires a method different from the one that would measure good solely in material terms. According to material calculations, the few loaves and fishes brought to Jesus would have surely been consumed in short order. There would no doubt have been a lot of hungry people instead of thousands fully satisfied.

The infinite calculus of infinite Spirit, however, reveals another method of measuring good. It shows the spiritual fact to be that good is ever unfolding to individual consciousness. And it confirms that wherever Christ has prepared thought to receive this truth, spiritual law always supersedes the material condition, for the spiritual law of abundance is solidly based on "Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply."

A pure realization that good is in fact never material but always spiritual, as Christian Science teaches, opens our thinking to the possibility that infinite good is truly available to all. Through prayer and spiritual sense, this good is first realized individually in terms of the Christly qualities that uplift, purify, and regenerate one's own thought and life to see man as the perfect likeness of God. This is the vision of divine reality that has healing power behind it. And the life of one so blessed—with abundant spiritual peace, purity, joy, and love—has a marked, beneficent impact on the lives of others. Such a life serves as a witness to the potential of unlimited good and its practical demonstration in human experience.

As spiritual qualities are made our own and practiced consistently, they take form in our experience in the tangible ways that meet immediate needs. Jesus surely knew the power of spiritual love and peace, and he nourished his followers with these qualities in great measure. No doubt many hearts were filled. And when the people were hungry for food, the Christ-power was proved entirely practical; Jesus could feed them with what was necessary to fill their stomachs. Thus he demonstrated that when the law of God is applied through prayer to meet human need, we awake to realize that divinity is never beyond our reach but rather embraces us in the tender care of an all-loving Father. This universal, healing action of the Christ, Truth, can be brought to bear today on the problems of our world—and will bring solutions—as we dedicate our lives to be lived for all our neighbors of the world and not just for ourselves.

We are blessed of God—each of us. And Science and Health sounds the keynote to realizing the fullness of this blessing: "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good." ^{Ibid., p. 518.}

WILLIAM E. MOODY