“The discomfort which Jesus inspired”—this phrase appears in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Here’s the full sentence: “The world could not interpret aright the discomfort which Jesus inspired and the spiritual blessings which might flow from such discomfort” (p. 53). What stood out to me when I read this was the word inspired. Not the discomfort Jesus caused, but the discomfort he inspired.
I asked myself, “How could discomfort be a good thing?” Then I remembered how and why I became a sincere student of Christian Science and the many blessings that followed. And I had to admit that it was discomfort that had impelled my first reading of Science and Health from beginning to end—and that had launched my journey Spiritward.
I’d attended a Christian Science Sunday School growing up, and loved what I’d learned there about God—that He is Love, the only cause, controller, and condition. He’s All-in-all, and divine Science is the law of His allness. Going out into the world after college, though, I wasn’t seeing any of this. While I never rebelled against my Sunday School lessons, I did put the Bible and Science and Health on the shelf for a while. I was striving to be a good person, but all I really wanted was “a nice little life.”
