AT our Wednesday evening testimony meetings we sometimes hear statements concerning the length of time required for the stated healings to take place, some saying that their healing was slow. The question arises, Why was the demonstration protracted? May not a reason for the delayed demonstration have been the state of lethargy in which so-called mortal mind would try to hold one? If the claim of sickness or disease does not include the belief of pain, or if the pain is quickly overcome, is not the sickness or disease apt to remain with us, as part of our thinking?
The belief that time has anything to do with healing is error. God does not know or recognize our human limits of days or hours. Peter said, "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day;" and Paul wrote, "Now is the accepted time." God's man is perfect now. John said, "Now are we the sons of God." Our revered Leader, Mrs. Eddy, clearly exposes the error of this false belief of time as separating us from God, from health and healing, when she says on page 37 of her book "Unity of Good," "Because God is ever present, no boundary of time can separate us from Him and the heaven of His presence."
God is omnipotent to-day, even this very instant. He will not be more powerful at any later time, nor was He more powerful in the time of Moses or in the time of Jesus. At this very moment He is omnipotent, All-in-all; hence, there is no real power but God. Likewise, God is present now. He will not be nearer to us in the future; nor was He more present to the prophets, to Jesus, or to the disciples than He is to all of us now. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 473), "God is everywhere, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power." This is not a promise for the future, a state to be attained at some near or remote period, but is realizable now. With God as All-power now, and All-presence now, how can the claim of sickness or disease be real or have power or presence? Let us with conviction declare this truth, realize clearly its significance, and we shall not fail to free ourselves from the bondage of false belief; and our healing will be manifested.
We must refuse to admit or accept as real the testimony of the physical senses. We should not delay a single instant to handle error or its false claims. Mortal belief would have us think that we are too busy at a particular time, or at the present moment, to stop to deny the false accusations of mortal mind. Yet we are always thinking about something; and each half-formed thought of error can be instantly denied and ruled out of consciousness by the truth. These half-formed, semiconscious erroneous thoughts are part of "the old man" that must be overcome, put off, replaced by "the new man." All false testimony eventually will be cast out of thought completely and finally.
"Now is the accepted time," says the Apostle Paul; and in "No and Yes" (p. 24) Mrs. Eddy writes, "There was never a moment in which evil was real." There never was a time, nor will there ever be a time, when God was less or greater in power than now, for God can never be other than Himself.
