'Come unto me'

Christianity brings to the world a great religion of hope and joy. Multitudes of meek seekers, some heartsick from long periods of unrelieved suffering, have felt the spirit of Christ Jesus' teachings and have been lifted out of their weariness. Even the towering Apostle Paul once described himself as ''in weariness and painfulness.'' n1 But he also found deliverance through the very teachings of Christ Jesus that he labored to share with humanity.

n1 II Corinthians 11:27.

It is obvious that some today have not yet found the deliverance they long for. When problems like unemployment and financial pressures, illness and maybe pain, strife and inharmony, go on and on, many people begin to feel weary with life. These are not the people who are bored with life because of idleness and selfish ease. These are the ones who are looking to God for relief from what seems to be life's unrelenting problems and pressures.

Christianity leads us to the one God, who lifts these burdens. Christ Jesus tenderly spoke directly to weary ones across the centuries when he said, ''Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'' n2

n2 Matthew 11:28.

What did he mean by ''me'' and ''I''? That supremely compassionate man has long since come and gone from this earth. If he had been teaching us to look for rest to that which was soon to leave us, his words would have given small comfort.

Surely, he was referring not just to his person but to the spirit of his life and teaching. The ''me'' and the ''I'' to which the master Christian gently turned the earth's weary ones is the eternal Christ, which he taught and demonstrated. Christ is Truth, revealing man as the perfect and cherished reflection of God. God is infinite good, divine Spirit and Love, as the Bible teaches; and man is not a mortal at all, but His immortal, spiritual image. The material senses may rebel at this truth, but the innate spiritual sense we all have assures us of it.

Our acceptance of this truth of man challenges the beliefs and practices growing out of the age-old conviction that man is merely a miserable, sinning mortal. It begins to unfold our true identity, and we increasingly experience the dignity and success and harmony that accompany such a view. The belief that any evil is actually real begins to break up in our thought like an ice jam in a spring thaw. We start to see that unemployment is impossible for the man that God forever employs to express Him; that lack and poverty are nonexistent for the precious reflection whom God sustains; that illness and pain and strife are unknown to the expression of divine Love. It is interesting how consistently we find that longstanding woes have their origin in false beliefs about God and man. But these woes dissolve as the beliefs that cause them are replaced with truth.

Sometimes other, more personal beliefs also need to yield to the Christ before our weariness with life is healed. Perhaps the problem is some pride of personal responsibility, or a tendency to depend on one's own energies rather than on God, or a chronic negative attitude. These beliefs may not in every case yield instantly to the uplifting Christ, Truth. But even if it takes years of patient Christian prayer, false beliefs surely will yield. And progress can begin now.

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: ''To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: 'Come unto me.' O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm.'' n3

n3 Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 19.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. Romans 15:13