To the children of Israel, Moses said, "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." Today this choice is before each individual, and everyone, whether consciously or unconsciously, chooses what he believes to be life. Each one can, and does, choose either happiness or unhappiness, courage or fear, success or failure, love or hate, life or death. It is a fact that we choose what thoughts we shall entertain, and upon our choice of that which is real depends our true sense of success, health, happiness, and supply.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 248): "We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind?" And she adds: "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love—the kingdom of heaven—reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear." In Christian Science we learn that we must choose the perfect model— spiritual man, made in God's likeness—and choose to stand on the side of God, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, before our lives can express good consistently, joyously, and abundantly.
The belief that man is the victim of circumstances, the unwilling and helpless object of sinister forces, is but an illusion of mortal mind, and indicates the need for enlightenment as to the nature and character of the real man and the true and only creation. Becoming conscious of the power to choose, one ceases to accept the necessity of bowing before evil circumstances and of accepting as real the evidences of error.
