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ELLA W. HOAG, CSD
For the most part the human race has apparently thought little about it. To be sure, there is perhaps nothing which humanity values more highly than it does approval. Men, however, all too frequently think and act from the standpoint of what their neighbor will think of them, thus embracing a tendency to live so as to receive praise of men rather than of God, without consideration as to where such tendency may lead. John relates that many of the chief rulers believed, but because of the Pharisees would not confess the Christ; "for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." This mistaken sense is often early fostered in the education of mortals. Children are taught to crave the approbation or to fear the disapproval of those around them to the exclusion of a higher motive. This perpetual looking to their fellow men for commendation has held mankind in subjection to a limited, unsatisfying sense of good. The mistaken education of men which has tended to set them watching for their neighbor's approval is based on the false belief of existence as material. In "No and Yes" (p. 40) Mrs. Eddy says, "Because of vanity and self-righteousness, mortals seek, and expect to receive, a material sense of approval." Looking to a finite, mortal concept of persons and things, men can see no larger hope of good than may be afforded by the expected commendation of their own little world. This human commendation is utterly unstable and unreliable; since it has only a changeable standard of values it is constantly fluctuating, and even the one who attempts to win its approbation meets more often with disapproval and displeasure than with the reverse. Just so long as mortals spend their efforts in trying to please persons, they are doomed to unhappiness. With an uncertain, unfixed standard of right and good they are constantly endeavoring to measure up to something which is continually varying, and so no definite or satisfying results can be obtained. While the watching for the approval of one's neighbor may be begun with apparently laudable purpose of pleasing another rather than one's self, it may still lack the elements of true unselfishness; and every one may recall in his own experience innumerable instances when his most earnest efforts in this direction have been fraught with keen disappointment. With a variable standard as to what satisfies, how is it possible to know how to please? The shores of time have been strewn with the wrecks which have resulted from an all-absorbing purpose to win the praise of men. How comforting to turn from the sad, fruitless endeavor to please people to the all-satisfying one of pleasing God. When Jesus said, "The Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him," he stated simply and clearly the animus of his entire life work. To live to please God—to have his every act so governed by God that God's approval must necessarily follow—was a distinguishing feature of his life of service to God and to mankind. He understood that he could only please God and bless his fellow men as he accepted, acknowledged, and obeyed no other Mind than God. Thus only could his acts be worthy of praise and commendation. Since God, divine Mind, includes and always maintains infinite perfection, His approval alone can be worth the seeking and can only be won by the demonstration of unity with Him. Then what joy to live to please God! What infinite bliss to learn so to understand divine Mind that one's every act shall be in accord with this perfect Principle and so merit divine approval. Now to be approved of God must also mean to be approved by all who belong to Him. It is only evil that disapproves of good, only wrong which is offended by right. To win the praise of God is to be conscious of the approbation of His ideas, and then how richly blessed are all one's efforts to serve his fellow men! It is Christian Science which in this age makes all this blessedness possible. In its revelation of God as Mind and in its delineation of His every demand on man it shows beyond the possibility of doubt that those demands are all so perfect, so loving, so love-producing, so happifying, that they leave nothing to be desired in any direction. When we live to please God we see how foolish is all effort to be mere pleasers of men; we are also protected from the paltry sycophancy which would cater to the approval of those who are in so-called high places; we see such efforts are but sheerest self-seeking. When one, therefore, has so learned to understand God that he has caught a glimpse of the all-desirable nature of His demands and proceeds to bring his every thought, word, and deed into obedience to these demands and so please Him, he wins the satisfaction which the consciousness of unity with God must always bring. In Miscellany (p. 160) we read, "To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power." There is no righteous act so small that it cannot be performed with the understanding that it is the expression of God's government and thus must merit His approval. It would be quite impossible to gain a greater satisfaction than that which comes when we hear the "Well done" of our Father-Mother, divine Mind. Peter tells us what the inevitable proof of God's approval is, what is the real assurance that we have indeed deserved the praise of God, when he says to the Jews, "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you." Then through our individual understanding and demonstration of Christian Science, as evidenced by healing the sick and the sinful, we may never lack this positive proof here and now that we, too, have "pleased God."
The Christian Science Journal, February, 1920 |
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