“Honesty is spiritual power” (Science and Health, p. 453). Mary Baker Eddy wrote that many years ago, but humanity today, including Christian Scientists, may be just beginning to grasp the fullness of what it means. Many around the world strive to live honestly, recognizing honesty’s moral force. Few, however, tap honesty’s potential as spiritual power. We’re all exploring the profound depths and heights of this quality called “honesty”; we’re all gradually broadening our sense of its practice.
Honesty means infinitely more than simply being truthful or not telling lies. Honesty, as a spiritual quality, involves being consciously aligned with all we know of reality. Honesty means remaining clear about the facts of existence—that we are entirely spiritual, eternal, ever at one with the Holy One, God. Spiritual honesty requires living with the constant admission that God is the only true Life.
Furthermore, honesty involves facing the fact that all our true desires are for the divine and eternal, even when we think we are enticed by materialism, worldliness, and things—by other “gods.” If we are honest with ourselves, then we must admit the hollowness of much that the world says is glittering and substantial, and instead value what really feeds the heart.
