Certainty for hungering hearts

Each day’s news brings us examples of humanity’s constant yearning for freedom and justice. Just this month, Tunisia experienced the second free presidential vote in its history. In Hong Kong, hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters – many of them students – show a fearless spirit and a determined faith in the right.

Most everyone, no matter their station in life, longs for greater peace and freedom. I’ve found that no matter where we are, or what circumstance we’re in, these words of Christ Jesus can inspire hope and comfort: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

There is a sense of rock-solid certainty in that beatitude, that even right where trouble seems to be, there is blessedness. This speaks to the divine power behind a love of what’s good and right. It also assures us that God, divine Love itself, hears and responds to us. One inspired writer in the Old Testament describes God’s care this way: “He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness” (Psalms 107:9).

The power of Love, God, to meet humanity’s hunger for spiritual, moral, and physical freedom was understood and articulated by Mary Baker Eddy, the religious reformer and Christian healer who discovered the divine Science of Christ. She once wrote, partially quoting a scriptural passage: “Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters’ ” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 13).

How can we tap into the surety and confidence in God, good, that Jesus so eloquently expressed? By beginning to understand more fully the actual nature of God, the Supreme Being. The Bible describes God as Love, and the divine Science of being also defines this Love as infinite Principle, fixed and invariable, the law by which all creation – the spiritual expression of God’s own love – is perfectly and wisely governed.

In other words, Love isn’t on again, off again. Another of Mrs. Eddy’s books explains this in poetic language: “God is not the shifting vane on the spire, but the corner-stone of living rock, firmer than everlasting hills” (“Unity of Good,” p. 14).

Love and Principle. Blessedness and an inevitable law of fulfillment. Our hungering hearts can turn to God, our heavenly Father-Mother, with confidence. God’s law of Love is scientific – universally practical. It doesn’t play favorites. Glimpsing God’s invariable law of good that governs all reality brings freedom to light and meets our needs. Christ Jesus illustrated this law not only in his teachings but in his many healing works.

A recent example of divine law bringing such healing occurred when I came down with a severe sore throat. I was worried about this worsening condition as I lay in bed one night. But with all my heart, I turned to God in prayer, hungering and thirsting to feel divine Love’s presence. Over the years, through many healings I’ve had in Christian Science, I have come to feel increasingly assured that God’s, Love’s, undeviating nature as the harmonious Principle of all is always here to meet our need for freedom, including freedom from ill health.

Giving strength to my certainty at that moment was the idea that God had created me (and everyone) in His own image and likeness – spiritual, good, whole, and complete. This canceled out the fear that I could be separated from God.

As I prayed along these lines, a sweet sense of God’s love came over me, leaving me in peace, and I fell asleep. The next morning, I awoke feeling happy and well, the soreness virtually gone. Plus, my thought was so uplifted! I felt “filled,” like that beatitude describes. By mid-morning all was completely back to normal, and I went on to have a great day.

This is a very modest instance, of course. But it gives me hope and confidence that the divine Principle is always active, its law universally applicable to larger as well as smaller issues of all kinds.

We can all play a role in supporting our brothers and sisters, whether around the block or across the world. We can embrace them in the prayer of faith that affirms the blessedness of divine Love and the fulfillment of divine Principle. In this way we allow the nearness and power of God’s love, and the unerring law of righteousness that is ever at hand, to shine through.