TRIUMPHING OVER ADVERSITY

We need not submit to nor suffer adversity; we can triumph over it by reversing its claim to reality. God made all that has ever been made, and all His works are perfect. This fact can be demonstrated. Did not the Psalmist sing (Ps. 92:4), "I will triumph in the works of thy hands"?

Christian Science reveals the eternal truth that God—Life, Truth, and Love—is the only Mind of man, and that man is the flawless expression of this Mind.

It also provides the rule for its demonstration, for through spiritual understanding, triumph comes into daily experience. On page 123 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes, "Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas." The scientific process of resolving things into thoughts heals the sick, the sinning, the perplexed, the sorrowing, as thousands who have tried it gratefully testify. The realization of man's original and eternal perfection is actually an awakening from the dream that man is a mortal. It is the dawning in human consciousness of the true status of man as he eternally is, the image and likeness of divine Mind, God.

An acquaintance of the writer's experienced such an awakening shortly after his induction into the United States Army as an enlisted basic trainee during the recent war. He seemed to be almost overwhelmed by the whirl of physical activity, the drudgery, monotony, and restrictions which allowed no opportunity for study of Christian Science or for quiet meditation on the truth about God and man which this Science reveals. When a disease threatened to enslave him further, he called a Christian Science practitioner for help. The immediate effect of the practitioner's treatment was to lift his thought to an improved view of his situation.

Rising above belief in the theory of a life divided into mental and physical spheres, the soldier saw clearly that since, as Mrs. Eddy states (ibid., p. 468), "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," everything that appeared to his thought as his experience was either a right idea manifesting Mind, God, or else it was a lying suggestion of mortal mind which he was always free to reject as being unworthy of a place in the consciousness of his real manhood.

For the first time he saw that his work in Science was not only defensive but expressive. He saw that he must not resentfully resist the many duties which claimed to interfere with his spiritual progress, but he must reflect the qualities of divine Life, God. His pleading for God's help was replaced by the desire to glorify God as his Life, to demonstrate His perfect will. "Thy will be done!" he thought. "I need no longer suffer the lies of mortal mind which suggest that life can be difficult. I can reverse them and prove that my only real Life is God, good."

So he began to reverse first the suggestion of lack of time for study by examining and correcting his thinking as he worked. He found many erroneous thoughts, which needed to be replaced with spiritual ideas. This active declaration of the truth about God and man had an immediate effect. He found time for daily study of the Lesson-Sermons in the Christian Science Quarterly. He now began to rejoice, for never before in his experience had he had a greater opportunity to glorify God.

Applying the rule of divine Science, he resolved the things called "daily duties" into thoughts. In making beds, scrubbing barracks, doing calisthenics, marching, standing inspection, and so on, he became increasingly conscious of his true selfhood, embodying such spiritual qualities as order, cleanliness, strength, precision, obedience, diligence, loving-kindness, gratitude, perfection. As he cherished these qualities and exalted them in his thought and action, such ungodlike beliefs as drudgery, fatigue, monotony, and restriction rapidly disappeared from his consciousness.

Instead of sharp commands which before had induced a sense of fear of making mistakes, he acknowledged the gentle guiding of the loving Father-Mother God, the source of command and response in His perfect idea, man. Instead of a selfish, jealous personality, he was able to perceive in some measure the real man, who expresses the pure qualities of Truth. Through the Science of Christ the dream of an imperfect mortal, which is never God's man, was being erased, and the perfect man, God's idea, was beginning to appear. Whenever the pictures of the fleshly dream claimed to be real, he found great joy and inspiration in singing to himself as he worked:

This soldier, who had thought that the duties of Army life left no time for study, now found himself so busy studying and demonstrating the truths of Christian Science that the belief of disease vanished. Whereas he had thought of his Army experience as something to endure, he now was so grateful for the opportunities it was giving him to glorify God by reversing limitation and seeing instead the limitless expression of Truth that his experience literally became to him a great blessing.

He proved that progress is indeed the law of God, for advancement followed advancement, the evidence of his spiritual understanding of God's goodness. Within three years after his induction into the Army this student was given command of an important unit in an overseas theater and promoted to the rank of major. In this capacity he was able to prove in ever greater degree the allness and goodness of God.

The men under his command were in need of relief from monotony and stifled incentive. Because he had many times reversed the claim of limitation in his own experience, thus proving it to be baseless, the Christian Scientist did not tell his men, as they had so often been told, that he could do nothing for them. On the contrary, he confidently invited the men to bring their troubles to him and promised that he would do something for everyone deserving help. Other officers told him that this was but a foolish waste of time. But the student knew that right efforts to do good cannot fail as long as they are governed by divine wisdom and Love.

Within a few weeks readjustments and transfers were made and promotions obtained for the worthy ones. Gratitude rather than dissatisfaction was expressed. The words, "It can't be done," were no longer to be heard. The spiritual understanding of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God erased the false picture of discontented, unhappy, frustrated mortals and brought into view in some degree the man of God's creating, satisfied and happy.

The great joy of triumph in the works of God's hands comes with the reversal of a specific error through the realization of a specific truth. As the reverse of a minus two is not zero, but plus two, so the reverse of an adverse circumstance is more than the absence of adversity; it is a glorious fact of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, a magnificent revealing of a positive, spiritual idea previously hidden by material belief.

We can here and now stop suffering the claims of evil and through Christian Science prove our God-given dominion over adversity. W e can begin to waken now from the dream of life and intelligence in matter, of human toil and struggle, to the truth of being—man in the image and likeness of God, spiritual, perfect, and free. When the qualities and ideas of Life, Truth, and Love are understood by you and me to constitute our true being, we shall see disease, inharmony, fear, and sorrow disappear from our human experience.

Let us replace ungodlike thoughts with the pure ideas of God. These right ideas, utilized, overcome and destroy error. As we reverse every adverse circumstance with the facts of being, our experience will be an ever progressive demonstration of the grandeur, beauty, and sublimity of divine Life, and we shall be victorious all the way.