Blessing that cannot be lost
A FEW years ago I experienced the loss of a longtime friend. For a while I felt hopelessly unhappy. There seemed no remedy for my grief. The purpose of years of work appeared irredeemably gone. I turned to prayer in search of an answer to my loss. There was a struggle, but I trusted I would find my answer in ``the Spirit of truth,'' the Comforter promised by Christ Jesus.1
In reading the Bible I came upon a passage in Jeremiah that stood out to me: ``Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.''2
Why, I asked, should a tree planted by water be like someone who trusts in God? Because the source of all its needs is right at hand. The outpouring of good from God never changes. Discerning this through prayer, the trusting individual still persists, still progresses, still bears fruit. Blessing results. There is no feeling of being cut off from good.
Thinking of my own experience, I asked: Is divine Love any less than it has been? Is God less than ever-present Spirit? Is divine Truth less true? Of course not. All the infinite goodness of God is still pouring out its undiminished benefits to man.
Then I reviewed all the blessings I was still experiencing. There were many. I was not cut off from good. Man cannot be. God provides it, and it is as sure as God. It is our task to open our thought to divine Love's constant provision for man.
Christ Jesus said, ``I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.''3 The wealth of love Jesus recommended that we express in our striving to be Christly--in our working to perceive and actually be what we really are as the sons and daughters of God--gives us a sense of oneness with good, and purpose in serving God, and these in turn bring renewal. We no longer feel like a branch pruned off or a tree without water. We realize more of our spiritual identity and its completeness. We stop seeing ourselves as mortal beings looking around in a material world for happiness that can be taken away.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, ``All must sooner or later plant themselves in Christ, the true idea of God.''4 Another of her statements offers an explanation of how to do this planting: ``It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.''5
The more I prayed, the more I was freed from a feeling of being separated from good. I saw more of what it means to bring forth fruit, to carry out in thought and action the truth of our unity with God. Acknowledging the omnipresence of God, we bring into our lives the joy and goodness that characterize this unlimited presence of good.
A new companionship emerged in my life. And I know more surely that good can no more be lost than God can be absent.
1See John 15:26. 2Jeremiah 17:7, 8. 3John 15:5. 4Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 54. 5Ibid., p. 491. You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
