ALL Christian Scientists learn that there are times in their experience when it is necessary to prove their ability correctly to apply the truth in the working out of seemingly trying problems. At such times they must be alert to see the solving of these problems as aids to progress.
With our first steps in Christian Science, our first demonstrations of the power and availability of Truth, there usually comes a confident assurance that we are now safely on the road to harmony, and no longer at the mercy of the false claims of error, or material sense. In this early stage of our unfolding understanding we are filled with hope, cheer, and a satisfying sense of security. We need to preserve this confidence in the presence and power of Truth; and it is easy to do so while our daily experience remains harmonious. When a testing time arrives, however, it is sometimes necessary to guard against a sense of resentment, a subtle and insidious suggestion that would induce us to take the attitude suggested by error, that is, to see the inharmonious circumstance or condition as real. Error, always opposed to Truth, would have us descend from the heights attained through our confidence in Truth to a supposititiously opposite depth in the bog of materiality. Firm and earnest declaration of the truth that man, as God's idea, the spiritual and only real man, is immune from whatever would harm, afflict, or limit nullifies the temptation to concede reality to the erroneous condition or circumstance, and sets us free to work out each problem in accordance with the unchanging and absolute law of Mind, which recognizes no reality or truth in that which is unlike God, good.
A student would not consider himself a mathematician, and certainly could not prove himself to be one, without exercising his ability correctly to apply or use the rules of mathematics. Neither would an earnest and attentive student of mathematics be afraid of a problem which he might be required to solve. Rather would he, with perfect confidence, set about using the rules he knew, with the realization that the rules of mathematics are constant, or in other words, reliable. This illustrates the fact that through an understanding of and reliance on God, divine Principle, the Christian Scientist can face the problems of human experience with confidence and fearlessness. It is usually fear that makes the working out of problems seem difficult and laborious; for in fearing any condition or circumstance we, in belief, endow error with a reality which, in truth, it does not have. In other words, in entertaining fear we depart from Principle, from the basic fact that God, good, is All-in-all.
