When someone is said to be inspired, it frequently has but a temporary and spasmodic significance. How different is the concept of inspiration which Christian Science inculcates! Mary Baker Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 454,) "Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way." From her writings we learn that Love, Spirit, is ever-presence; hence we learn that its qualities of inspiration, spiritual illumination, and guidance are ever available. In other words, inspiration is perpetually and continuously at hand, not subject to coming and going, ebb and flow, interruption or delay.
The first meaning of "inspiration" given in Webster's dictionary is "act of breathing in." As we breathe in the purifying and enlightening ideas of God, Spirit, Love, we naturally breathe out, or express, these ideas in a way that those around us can understand. Inspiration is divinely natural, and should be unlabored and continuous.
Elihu, who was impatient with the reasoning of his three older friends, said to Job (32:8), "There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding;" and in the next chapter he reverts to this thought, saying, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." He must have glimpsed the fact that man lives by divine inspiration; that consciousness illumined with the ideas of Spirit constitutes the real man, whom God has made. This conviction undoubtedly helped to turn Job's thoughts away from self, so that he was able to hear God's voice speaking to him directly. Through seeing something of the true nature of God and man he realized the meaning of repentance and humility. With this illumination came his healing.
