Life -- an adventure in loving

It was wartime. I was in a strange country on my first furlough to its largest city. Excitement ran high as the train rocked rhythmically toward its destination.

Relaxing, I reminisced how success had replaced failure and misfortune since Christian Science had healed me in an Army hospital. Everything had become new -- new meaning, new direction, new activity. The Bible had become my guide to life. I could say with Paul, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." n1

n1 Romans 8:2

Suddenly my reverie was shaken with the disturbing thought of being alone in a foreign land -- not knowing what to do, where to go. Just as quickly I recalled the comforting words of Christ Jesus, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." n2 And those of Mary Baker Eddy, n3 "We live in an age of Love's divine adventure to be All-in-all." n4

n2 John 10:10

n3 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

n4 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,m p. 158

I was learning that the challenging adventure of life is a full commitment to spiritual living and loving. Jesus accepted the challenge and fully lived the life that comes from God, divine Love. He told us how to live that life in these words: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." n5

n5 John 17:3.

I was also learning that a full commitment to living does not include an adventure in sensuality. Sin is the absence of true life. Materialism and selfishness are a misuse or abuse of life and hide the active, healthy, holy life of Love. Jesus' words quoted earlier regarding abundant life begin, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." The material sense of life claiming matter as its source is the "thief," the phantom of selfish sense seeking pleasure in matter, but finding only fear and disease. Sensuality is bondage; spirituality is freedom.

Christian Science was teaching me that God is divine Life and Love. Therefore, actively living a loving life, we are constantly sustained and renewed. The life flowing from divine Love is a deep calm of holiness leading to ever-widening spheres of usefulness, unselfish giving, and affectionate concern for others.

On arrival, I found through a marvelous set of circumstances a delightful elderly couple who treated me, a total stranger, as their son. They arranged a whirlwind of wholesome activity for me, including a tour and theater. After the play an actor invited me to a gathering of authors and diplomats from various countries. And so it went the entire furlough.

This experience I saw as a symbol of a greater adventure awaiting me in Christian Science, a spiritual adventure finding health, holiness, immortality, developing manhood and womanhood in Christ, and bringing out unselfish service to God and man.

the years since have proved to me that the purity of a life of love is the power of Christ that denies mortality and destroys sin, lack, illness, and the fear of death. Immortal Life sustains us here, now, always, in the active unfoldment of our real being. Incorporeal Love draws us steadily onward and upward in life's adventure in spiritual loving. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Psalms 16:10, 11