While at lunch yesterday happened to get in a conversation with Howard, a retired gentleman who works part-time, and has become a friend of ours. Naturally, we got on the economy and he said something arresting: what's happening in the US is a wake-up call for Americans to get back to God. He asked our religion, told him, asked his, member of an evangelical denomination. But we agreed that people cannot forever leave God out of the picture and continue prospering--or even treading water, in some cases. Howard said, remember what happened to the children of Israel when they forsook God's laws.
This led me right to Jesus' parable of the house (how timely is this?) built on rock and the one built on sand. And being a student of the teachings of Christian Science, to something its Founder wrote: "In some way, sooner or later, all must rise superior to materiality, and suffering is oft the divine agent in this elevation. 'All things work together for good to them that love God' is the dictum of Scripture. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, page 444.
Dr. John Tutt, an early worker in the Christian Science movement, a former medical doctor who took up the study of Science, once said to a close friend of mine, "Remember that Christian Science is Science applied to Christianity". How grateful I am to have the holy Word of God as given us through the prophets, Christ Jesus, apostles, and through the writings of Mary Baker Eddy to dig into, which thoroughly empower us in getting through rough times. A verse from the Christian Science Hymnal mentions overcoming through Christ alone. (Haven't consulted my Concordance for the exact one.) Of course, we overcome through Christ alone--but only through understanding what he knew about God's laws, about man's relationship to his loving Father. And in my view, only Christian Science presents the knowledge Jesus had, and how to demonstrate divine truths.
So let everyone reading this ask himself: am I serious about building my house for eternity?
And what is it going to be for me? Rock--or sand?
