Every so-called problem might be said to be one of lack. One individual seems to lack health, another supply, another happiness, another normal eyesight or hearing, and so on. These conditions are not realities, but the seeming absence of reality. And why does lack appear? Because our belief that matter is substance has prevented us from understanding that Spirit alone is truly substantial, and that Spirit's creation, man and the universe, is complete and perfect. The one who lacks supply may have thought of money or material things as supply. He who lacks health has, no doubt, considered health a condition of the material body. Manifestly, then, our remedy is to get the true concept of reality or substance.
In healing a condition of the apparent lack of some good thing which it is man's God-given right to have, we begin with what might be called a process of spiritual education. In so far as we believe in the reality of matter, we have been falsely educated. As we begin to acknowledge divine Mind as our sole instructor, accepting only spiritual facts as true, our sense of lack immediately begins to disappear, and we see that all we ever lacked was a correct understanding of the presence and perfection of God and His complete, spiritual universe.
In Romans we read, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." And in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 331) Mary Baker Eddy tells us that "everything in God's universe expresses Him." Since God is divine Mind, and Mind expresses itself in ideas, it is true that every idea in God's universe is the eternal manifestation of divine activity. If, then, every idea essential to our complete expression of good is present and active, why do we seem to experience lack? Because we have not yet become aware of the presence and activity of these ideas. And how are we to become aware of them? Through spiritual sense. And how do we acquire spiritual sense? Our Leader answers this question as follows (Science and Health, p. 272): "The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek."
