Love's provision for each of us
The individual who is perhaps feeling a bit jealous because a friend he has been close to is now spending more time with someone else, need not be discouraged or resentful. The good that was in the relationship is never lost. And a change in the nature of a relationship can offer a good opportunity to learn more about God and man, thus enabling one to experience more of God's love and care as well as the healing of any negative feelings.
God did not make two kinds of man, the loved and the wanting to be loved. The one infinite God made man in His image, as the Bible states. And being the image of God, who is Love, man reflects the qualities of Love and is perpetually loved. This truth may seem temporarily hidden; but it's the spiritual fact of our being, a fact we can begin to prove.
God, as the one supreme cause, is the source of all love. His love is spiritual, unchanging; it does not originate from within people. Disappointment with human affection can turn us to express and experience God's love. Then we begin to learn that because God is infinite, opportunities must exist every moment to express and experience that true love.
God doesn't have us in holding patterns, waiting for the right person to come along before we can be happy. The ability to feel love is not found in waiting to be loved by someone else. Rather, it starts with discerning more of God's constant love and learning to express it. The more love we express, the more we'll feel the reality of divine Love's presence.
A new and solid friendship can't really develop if we're jealous of another's friends. This would be basing our affections and actions on a limited sense of God's love. Jealousy and envy are merely impositions of what Paul refers to as ''the carnal mind,'' the supposed opposite of the infinite divine Mind. It is supposititious because that which is infinite can't really have an opposite. Neither fear nor envy can operate in the consciousness that is acknowledging, and feeling, the presence of infinite Love.
We are advised by Paul, ''Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.'' n1 Isn't this ''mind'' the devine Mind , the Mind each pf us he Mind each of us truly expresses? The Mind that is God is not envious or jealous. If we are trusting God's infinite goodness to care for all needs, including those in the area of companionship, we are letting the one Mind be expressed in us and cannot feel jealous. The two thoughts, jealousy and trust, are mutually exclusive.
n2 Philippians 2:5.
God has not given His expression, man, the capacity to envy or a cause to be envious. God has not caused man to fear that he can be without love. ''God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, '' n2 the Bible assures us.
n2 II Timtothy 1:7.
As the creation of God, man is already and eternally whole. We don't, then, have to wait for another person to come along before we can feel complete and satisfied. Completeness is not derived from another person; it comes from obedience to God's law, from looking to Him to satisfy our needs and expecting those needs to be filled. Because there are no voids in God's universe, there can be no void in man.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, states, ''Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals.'' n3 Each of us can expect to feel God's love in a satisfying way. Right now, universal Love, when turned to, can be seen supplying us with proper and fulfilling friendship.
n3 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 13.
DAILY BIBLE VERSE How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! THEREFORE the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light. O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy rightousness to the upright in heart. Psalms 36:7-10
