Every conscientious student of Christian Science engaged in valiant warfare against the flesh at times is baffled, even to the verge of discouragement, by the difficulty of controlling his thinking. It is comparatively easy to curb imaginations, since they are admittedly within one's power to restrain; but it seems to be more difficult to refrain from arrogance, assertiveness, and other manifestations of belief in and desire for personal supremacy. However, such will usually subside before the reminder that man's intelligence is but the reflection of the knowledge of God. When self-assertiveness is lifted up against God, it merely serves to reveal a degree of development so feeble and imperfect as rapidly to induce that wholesome mental condition of humility in which further growth is possible. But when one comes to the decisive battle of the campaign, the "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ," one questions how the crowning victory may be attained, which is constantly uppermost in desire despite all seeming failure and defeat.
On page 7 of "The People's Idea of God" Mrs. Eddy writes, "Because God is Spirit, our thoughts must spiritualize to approach Him, and our methods grow more spiritual to accord with our thoughts." In this statement is true thought control epitomized. Our thoughts, hitherto considered vague and elusive, are shown to afford us a direct avenue of approach to God, accessible to us according to the degree in which we discipline them to conformity with Him,—spiritualize them to accord with Spirit, which is God. What is this but a reiteration of the first and greatest command of all, to love God "with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength"? Is not this the "obedience of Christ," the obedience which Christ Jesus learned through the suffering and the experience which attended the proof of his sonship, which he accomplished on earth, which had to be learned by him, "though he were a Son," and which therefore may be, can be, and indeed must be learned by us in no other way, as we also go forward to make our own proof of the relationship existing between us and our Father? As by the avenue of spiritualized thinking we approach God, we are ushered into the very presence of the divine, wherein nothing but such disciplined and purified thought could endure for an instant—not even long enough to draw nigh.
Now for the other half of this plain rule: we are also to discipline our methods, that they may "grow more spiritual to accord with our thoughts." The rectified thought is not to be left unguarded; it is to be reinforced by strong reserves, perhaps scarcely recognized in that capacity, or which perchance may have been left so far in the rear of our thinking as to be of little or no avail in a sudden emergency, a swift onslaught of temptation. For it must not be forgotten that the adversary carries his warfare even into the very highest concept of harmony to which our disciplined thought has yet attained. And even our confidence as to our ultimate victory does not, and indeed cannot, operate to enable us to avoid the conflict.
