Who needs God?

`GOD? Who needs God? I get along just fine without Him, thank you. And I'm sure He's doing just fine without me!'' This comment of an acquaintance really got me thinking about our response to God. Probably most people aren't out-and-out atheists. People generally believe that something supremely powerful and intelligent must have created life and the universe. But on a practical, everyday basis, many people feel they live without any real sense of God in their lives.

I remember when I felt this way. Oh sure, I believed there was a God. But I felt that if there was a Supreme Being, He had little immediate meaning in my personal life. I was young, in good health, had been successful in school and athletics, and a bright future lay before me. God? Well, yes, He was a nice ``concept,'' something for occasional Sundays and moments of religious contemplation, but hardly a practical, daily companion. (Or so I thought!)

The disappointments and tragedies of human life soon demolished this illusion of godless self-sufficiency. More and more I realized that something fundamental was missing from my life, and that something was God. There was a solid -- even scientific -- reason for this empty feeling, I discovered. It goes to the very heart of what the Bible teaches, and what Christian Science teaches, about the real relationship of man to God -- that ``in him [God] we live, and move, and have our being.''1

You see, God is not optional. He is the very Life and substance of our being, whether we know it or not. That's why only to the degree we know God as our creator and Life do we really live. Only by knowing God within our own lives can we find the permanent good our hearts long for, the love and life that cannot deceive, disappoint, or pass away.

This was Christ Jesus' essential message -- that through the sonship with God he exemplified, we too can know God as ``our Father'' and be consciously at one with Him. In the beautiful words of the King James Bible, ``As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.''2

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded the Science of God and man we are talking about here, makes a statement in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that amplifies this Biblical truth. She writes: ``In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being.''3

This beautiful spiritual vision of God and of man in His spiritual likeness reveals just how much we do need God. Indeed, our need is absolute, for He is in fact our real Life. Simply because one now knows little of this living, loving God doesn't mean that His existence is fanciful or irrelevant. God is real! He matters, and each one of us matters to Him.

Do you want more genuine love in your life? Then learn the nature of real Love, divine Love. Do you want more honesty in your life? Then learn what Truth really is. Do you want to experience more order and peace? Then learn what divine Principle is. Do you yearn for more beauty and joy in your life? Then discover the glories of infinite Soul. Do you perhaps need better health? Then study and practice the medicine of Mind that Jesus practiced. Are you grief-stricken or fearful of death? Then seek the comfort and reassurance of eternal Life. Does the thought of freedom from all physical limitations speak to your sense of unlimited progress and adventure? Then set out to plumb the ultimate reality, the infinite universe of Spirit.

Love, Truth, Principle, Soul, Mind, Life, Spirit -- these are the Biblically derived names for the one God we do need -- the loving Father-Mother who also needs us as His creation, bearing witness to His nature. Who needs God? You do. I do. We all do. He is our Father and Mother. And the sooner we learn the practical meaning of this truth, the more good we can do in our own lives and for the world.

1Acts 17:28. 2John 1:12, 13. 3Science and Health, p. 63.

You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee....It is good for me to draw near to God. Psalms 73:25,28