Do you long to make progress in some area of your life? To grow on the job, outgrow a bad habit, or heal a long-standing physical problem? Whatever the goal, the place to start is always the same—in thought. Christian Science teaches that when improvement is needed, we must first transform thought.
In the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy explains: “We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you reproducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicious sculptors and hideous forms.” Instead, she says, “We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives” (p. 248).
I learned the importance of choosing the right thought-models early in my career. On my first job after college, my supervisor commented that I possessed good skills and capabilities, but it appeared I was carrying around extra baggage that was weighing me down. After that, I began to notice that I had a negative mental picture of myself as someone with a lot of shortcomings, the main one being an inability to manage time. This was the baggage I carried around with me.
I would frequently arrive late for work, a meeting, or church services, and whenever I did, I would think to myself, “Why is this so hard for you? Everyone else here showed up on time. Why can’t you?” Then my self-image would sink even lower.
Whatever the goal, the place to start is always the same—in thought.
What got me out of this rut was a new job that called for a deeper commitment to Christian Science. As I became more earnest in my study of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, I was able to see myself more clearly as the reflection of God, divine Mind, which naturally includes intelligence, order, and precision, giving me the ability to be where I needed to be, on time. Looking to this spiritual model, and away from the model of a flawed material self, I could see that God was filling my thought with all the love, patience, and alertness I needed each day.
Some facets of my job were completely new to me and I lacked confidence in those areas, but I made steady progress as I learned to turn to divine Mind for guidance. With increased reliance on God, I began to see evidence of His support consistently, and that helped me see through the lie of the matter model more readily. The false suggestions of a limited mortal mind apart from God were easier to identify as just that—false suggestions. So they were less able to distract me from my goal of punctuality in my work.
However, outside my job I still struggled and found myself late to engagements. Then one day while reading an article in the Christian Science Sentinel, I gained a new insight that changed my thinking. The article was written by a mother, who explained how she saw through her child’s disruptive behavior and realized it was a lie about her daughter’s beloved, wholly good selfhood as a child of God. She understood that because the bad behavior was a false view of her daughter, not the truth, she didn’t need to figure out what was wrong or how to fix it. That resulted in a transformation of her daughter’s behavior (see Lynne Cook, “A change of perspective,” April 8, 2013).
Likewise, it dawned on me that I didn’t need to figure out what was wrong with me, either! The habit of tardiness was a lie. I didn’t need to fix a bad me; I needed to reject the lie of an erring, mortal selfhood altogether, and turn my thinking to my true, spiritual identity as God’s image and likeness, which had never been defective. After this breakthrough, a new pattern of behavior unfolded naturally, and punctuality became dominant in my daily experience.
Once we perceive the falsity of matter models and exchange them for true, spiritual models, no difficulty, bad habit, or disease can have power over us. We stop questioning the reasons for problems and setbacks and realize that they are part of the matter model, not our true selves. Then progress and healing unfold naturally as the outcome of corrected thought.
Lorraine Jennings lives in Pasadena, California, and is a freelance writer and substitute schoolteacher.
