Sooner or later everyone must learn to stand up for his own true spiritual selfhood and for his ability to make this selfhood manifest in everyday living. He must learn not to be dismayed when adverse circumstances or unhappy situations present themselves but to declare and prove the power of spiritual law to turn aside whatever the thrusts of error may be.
Through Christian Science we learn that it is not what comes to us that determines our well-being or lack of it. The outcome of any erroneous situation arising in our experience depends upon our mental attitude: whether we accept error as real, present, personal, and powerful or whether we reject it for what it really is—an impersonal, powerless lie of the carnal, or mortal, mind—never real, never present.
It is of great comfort and inspiration to know that divine Mind gives us the spiritual stamina to refute every one of mortal mind's lies; gives us the strength to stand staunchly for the fact that true selfhood is intelligent, strong, perceptive, active, healthy and that this selfhood expresses always the Christ-love, the Christ-spirit, and the Christ-power.
Mortal mind is inherently aggressive, but we need to remember that it is also inherently powerless. As we turn to the one divine Mind for guidance, as we keep our daily work alert, strong, and pure with thoughts that come to us from Mind, or good, error cannot cloud our mentality or paralyze our spiritual knowing. It cannot bewilder us with its false suggestions, cannot force us to agree with it in any way, cannot confuse us by making us forget our true selfhood, cannot discourage us so that we accept self-depreciation, cannot persuade us to depart from the dignity, beauty, and joy of true being.
If, for instance, mortal mind argues that we are ill, we have the God-given ability to stand with determination for the truth of ourselves: we are not ill; we cannot be ill; we have nothing about us that can be sick or become discordant. Man is made in the likeness of God, Spirit, and he stays that way.
If the argument is that we lack something, we can stand steadfastly for the affluence of spiritual selfhood, a selfhood that is rich not only in all the inward graces of Spirit but in their outward manifestation. Christ Jesus said, "It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Luke 12:32 Divine Love does not require its ideas to struggle incessantly for supply. God gives His children the kingdom, gives them all good, gives them spiritual dominion and the ability to make this dominion manifest.
When conscientiously we do our part humanly, when we pray consistently, when we open thought humbly to divine Mind—the source of all right ideas and hence of all supply—the false belief in any phase of lack disappears, and we see that we are already rich in Love's outpouring. Supply—the fullness of all good—is not exterior to us, not something that we must reach out to acquire; it is inherent in us, our natural state of being as recipients of God's great goodness.
The Christian worker must take a definite stand for the fact that man's true selfhood is sinless. But much more than metaphysical declarations are needed. Right effort must be made. The Master said, "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."Mark 13:37 This does not mean part-time watching, but full-time watching, guarding thought all the time against evil, strengthening our effort to be and do good all the time.
If mortal mind argues that we are victims of malice or hate, let us stand up to this lie, not only for our own good but for the good of all humanity. No one is ever a victim of hate, because in reality there is no hate. The truth is that no one hates; everyone loves. Hate has no life, no power; it does not act, project itself, come from anyone or go to anyone. God's creation is always enfolded in infinite Love, and there is no hate to penetrate Love.
No evil can harm us unless we believe it has power to harm us. No error can hinder or stop our progress when we ourselves have risen above error.
We do not heal sin, sickness, lack, or any other besetment of evil by excusing our own errors or by blaming someone else for them. It is easy to look outside ourselves to find a reason for our troubles, but not so easy to look within. Mortal mind does not want us to look within; it does not want us to uncover its method of using our thoughts. When we uncover it, error can no longer continue to have a hold upon us. When we conquer a false sense of self, we often find that a situation which seemed intolerable disappears.
If we look at trials in the right way, they do not hurt us. They force us to rise higher, to take a firmer stand for Truth and for our true selfhood. They compel us to gain more confidence, courage, understanding, and strength, and so they bless us. Speaking of faithful workers and of the good that out of human adversity may come to them, Mrs. Eddy states, "The best lesson of their lives is gained by crossing swords with temptation, with fear and the besetments of evil; insomuch as they thereby have tried their strength and proven it; insomuch as they have found their strength made perfect in weakness, and their fear is self-immolated."Miscellaneous Writings, p. 10
Evil cannot make us afraid to face error —to test and prove our strength against it. Evil cannot trick or fool us into mistaking our course, into doing what is not wise or good to do. It cannot influence us to act before we are ready or to undertake that for which we are not prepared. No human trial, no human suffering, can put us down and keep us down if we keep our purpose high and steadfast.
We are all born to a mission: the duty to rightly fill our place whatever it may be. Just as Christ Jesus did all that was his to do, so eventually must every one of us do likewise. Just as he stood firm concerning his God-given mission and his ability to perform it, so must we. Just as he claimed and made manifest his spiritual sonship as the image and likeness of God, so must we. Jesus declared, "I and my Father are one." John 10:30; Divine, unassailable sonship, oneness with our divine Principle, Love, and the strength which inheres in this oneness are here now for each of us to claim and prove.
Having counseled us to maintain in consciousness the scientific facts of being, our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, writes in Science and Health, "Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win." John 10:30; We have all proved many times that we can hold our ground and that we can win. Unshaken by whatever mortal mind would have us believe, we have proved that we can stick to the facts of our own true being. We can be strong. We can stand unafraid, shoulder whatever our responsibilities are, and move forward, unbowed and free.
Paul counsels us, "Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." Eph. 6:13 The whole armor of God is the whole denial of evil and the whole affirmation of good. To "stand fast ... in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free" Gal. 5:1 is to stand up for our own true selfhood.
We are to be awake. We are not to sit— be idly or sleepily apathetic while error has its way. We are to be spiritually active, spiritually alert, spiritually perceptive. We are to stand up for good; stand up for our ability to be demonstrators of good. We are to stand up for the absolute, spiritual truths which Christian Science is teaching us.
In a poem written by our Leader about the laying of the cornerstone of The Mother Church are these words:
Be awake;
Like this stone, be in thy place:
Stand, not sit.Poems, p. 76
