A Small boy asked his father why he could not have been up already instead of having to grow up. The father replied that without the growing, there could be no up. The truth contained in this answer is stated more scientifically by Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 253. 254), where she says, "The divine demand, 'Be ye therefore perfect,' is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable."
This divine demand to be perfect cannot be ignored, erased, or forever put off, since its fulfillment is inevitable. Sooner or later each one must outgrow imperfect false concepts of man as sinning, suffering, and dying, and grow "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
The concern of all mankind should be to discover the right way of taking these indispensable footsteps which lead to perfection, since in every human heart is the longing to find the highway of our God. Desires are often misinterpreted by mortals, however, and materialized; hence a frantic pursuit after things of the flesh and sensual pleasures sometimes ensues. Such pursuit leads only to mortal mazes of disappointment, confusion, and despair, which dim one's vision of purpose and bar progress.
