THERE is an innate tendency of the human mind to do what it wants to do. and to resist anything it is compelled to do. This resistance, however, is not always due to the spirit of unruliness. but sometimes to a lack of understanding of what obedience really is and of what and how to obey. When regarded from the standpoint of blind duty or perfunctory obligation, even the "Thou shalt not" of divinity may fail to meet with a glad response of obedience. Unthinking compliance with creeds, doctrines, and traditions has too often been mistaken for obedience to the will of God. Again, mere submission to personal demands, or yielding obedience through compulsion, is not obedience at all. In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 (p. 8) Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "Learn to obey; but learn first what obedience is."
Through Christian Science we come to look upon obedience in the light of spiritual reflection. In its true significance we find it to be a beautiful idea, grand to contemplate, a divine quality of Mind; it is man's voluntary and involuntary response to spiritual law, the activity of his at-one-ment with divine Love. As the rays of the sun fulfill naturally the laws of light, so does spiritual man, reflecting God, fulfill spontaneously the mandates of divine Mind without resistance or even the capacity to disobey. Beholding the Science of being, wherein man and the universe are in perfect accord with God, we discover obedience to be man's joyous expression of divine Principle.
This illuminated obedience is awakened in the human heart, not alone through the compulsion of duty, but also through the impulsion of love: not through fear of punishment, but through the glad assurance of the blessings gained through obedience. Being a factor of divine Love, the very quality of obedience is joyous, inspirational, and intelligent. Thus, to obey divine Principle instead of false belief, spiritual intuition and vision instead of self-will and human instinct, causes the divine law to function in human affairs. God's will to be done "in earth, as it is in heaven." The flower gives forth its fragrance and the setting sun glorifies the sky, in accord with the laws governing their expression. Looking above these material pictures and the material thought-realm, of which they are products, into the universe of Spirit, where divine law functions, do we not feel the sweet aroma of love and behold the afterglow of peace articulating themselves in the life that is in complete subordination to divine Principle? A life that is lived in obedience to the law of divine Love is a life of fulfillment, success, and progress. Who. then, does not rejoice to obey this law, and allow its expression of health and freedom to be fulfilled in his experience?
