Many commands and useful directives are warnings of what not to do: Don't drive through a red light; Don't put your hand on a hot stove; "Say No to drugs," and so on. In the Manual of The Mother Church, Mary Baker Eddy gives "A Rule for Motives and Acts," and its last sentence is a warning against doing a lot of things wrongly. It reads, "The members of this Church should daily watch and pray to be delivered from all evil, from prophesying, judging, condemning, counseling, influencing or being influenced erroneously." Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 1.
These words had long been familiar to me. I knew them by heart. Wanting to be obedient, I went over them frequently, if not daily. One day, though, I realized how far my practice fell short of real obedience. Not only did I review this rule less than daily, but my obedience to it was less than real doing. After all, one could read a recipe all day, know it by heart, repeat it over and over, but that would never make or bake the cake. The instructions must be carried out or there's no end product.
Then, how could I do a better job of actually watching and praying to be delivered from doing all those things erroneously? As I listened to divine Mind for an answer, it soon occurred to me that when I was a child learning arithmetic, I wanted to be delivered from adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing, erroneously. And how did I achieve that? By constantly practicing the right method. And the more adept I became at adding and multiplying rightly, the more thoroughly I was delivered from performing these functions wrongly.
