BY many, lack may be believed to have become chronic when to mortal sense it has continued for a long time. Many sufferers tolerate lack as an almost inescapable, even normal, part of their experiences; while they think of habitual plenitude as something intended for others more fortunate. But lack, being a claim of material sense, is untrue and no part of man's being, and is therefore as healable in Christian Science as are sin and disease, and by the same spiritual means, namely, mental regeneration. However chronic a condition of lack may seem to be, one can at any time begin to do as Mrs. Eddy directs, when she says (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 242), "Let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error,—selfwill, self-justification, and self-love." And as this is done suffering from belief in lack ceases, and human affairs begin to show evidences of Love's ever present plenitude.
To labor aright in Christian Science one must at all times desire healing and hope for it. Not to desire healing, or to think of it as past hoping for, is not even to be on the field of labor. Desiring, hoping, and concurrently doing aright are always effectual in overcoming evil. Prayer and practice, which involve everything from desire to demonstration, constitute the true labor that will dissolve the belief of chronic lack. First of all, prayer opens one's consciousness to receive the right ideas that eternally emanate from the divine intelligence; to receive the wisdom to know one's real needs and resources, this being a prime requisite to one who would demonstrate plenitude. Next, by practice—and by this word is meant the utilization of one's understanding of true resources through which to meet his true needs—one completes his prayer in demonstration.
But what are man's true needs and resources? How may one pray to know them aright? To know, to understand, one must in his prayer proceed from the basis that God, infinite Mind, is the one perfect cause of all that is real, and that He and all His creation, including man, coexist as substance and reflection respectively, inseparable and alike, as cause and effect must invariably be. Continuing, one must deduce that because of this relationship man is by reflection possessed of all of God's perfect qualities, for the image can in no wise differ from the original. Logically, then, one must conclude that man's true and only resources are the qualities of Mind, which are his by reason of his sonship with God, and his whole need is the necessity always to give them active expression.
