"Where is your faith?" KATHERINE ENGLISH          Once when Jesus and his fishermen friends were crossing the lake of Tiberias in a small boat, they were overtaken by one of the sudden storms peculiar to those waters. His disciples, frantic with fear, roused Jesus from his sleep. He quelled the storm, and immediately "there was a great calm" — such a calm as always comes to the human heart when the presence of God is realized. Gently he asked them, "Where is your faith?" He knew where his own faith was placed. Had he not just proved to them that it was in God, ever present omnipotent Love, whose outward manifestation is seen as harmony, peace, and safety? Their faith was in destructive matter, or they would not have been afraid. His dominion, even over the raging waves and winds, was instantly available because his faith was placed in indestructible Spirit. Thus he was enabled to prove before their very eyes his understanding of the action of the law of God. He was practicing what he preached.          Today, when difficulties and dangers arise, there comes to us the inward question, "Where is your faith?" Some will say, "I have trusted in riches but they have taken wings;" another may say, "My faith has been in drugs but now they fail me;" yet another declares, "I have believed in operations, having already had several" — and so on with diet, hygiene, exercise, and many other theoretical means of trying to obtain health and happiness. There seems to be no lack of faith; in fact, it is amazing how much faith people seem to have. But where is it placed? If it is in matter or in the so-called human mind it is misplaced, and is not the faith that saves.          Jesus said to the woman who conquered her shyness enough to press through the crowd and touch the hem of his garment, whereby she was cured of an illness that had kept her in poverty and sickness for years, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." What was her faith? Where was that faith placed? A small boy once defined faith as believing something you know is not true. Many people, if honest with themselves, can own to a similar conception of faith; but such self-deception is not the faith which brings deliverance from danger, or which enables one to receive healing. It is mere credulity; having no proper basis, it is incapable of constancy and as unstable as a house built upon shifting sands. The faith which stands firm in adversity arises from the confidence which springs from the recognition of God as unfailing, unchanging, omnipotent good. It is not reasonable to trust in a power which we believe may turn upon us and destroy us at any moment; but we can have complete confidence in God when we see that He is wholly consistent, never employing evil or countenancing it for any purpose whatever. We trust what we understand to be true or to be worthy of our trust. We trust the multiplication table because we have learned to understand it and have proved it to be true; we rely on it in our daily calculations. When we were little children, we accepted its statements and learned them by heart because we trusted the truthfulness and intelligence of, perhaps, the parent who gave us our earliest lessons. Later we discovered that what we learned on trust we could always prove if it were correct; and so constant practice gave us faith in the science of numbers, by means of which questions of computation are solved.          So our faith in God grows as we learn to understand and apply His law. A faith which can be relied upon to stand in a storm must be developed in times of quiet, by obedience to the law of God in the small details of daily life, by seizing every opportunity of testing it, until it becomes as habitual in time of need to turn to Spirit as it is to take up a pen when one must sign one's name. One's faith must be a very present faith in an ever present God.          The habitual realization of God's perpetual presence assures to us the quick demonstration of His power. When we begin to learn something of the goodness of God, we begin to prove it bit by bit; then one experience of protection, healing, or comfort leads to another, and our faith in God increases daily. In her book "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 1) Mrs. Eddy answers the question, "How would you define Christian Science?" by these words: "As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony." Christian Scientists know where their faith is; they know in what they believe; it is in this "law of God," good, — or in Christian Science. They are discovering that in the proportion that their lives are governed by this law, in that proportion are their lives and homes filled with love, joy, peace, health, and happiness. They find that it is still true that faith will make whole, if that faith is "rooted and grounded in love;" if it is planted, not in evil but in good, not in matter but in Spirit.   "'Where is your faith?'" by Katherine English Christian Science Sentinel, April 1, 1922

 

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