There was a time many years ago when I struggled with my preparedness to practice Christian Science effectively. Thoughts frequently occurred to me that I just did not know enough; that if faced with a serious situation, I would not be able to hear God or know what to do. One year, at a meeting of my Christian Science association, there were reports of two children completely healed solely through Christian Science treatment.
After hearing these accounts, and while I was driving the four-plus hours to my home, I became aware that my misgivings about my ability to practice effectively were a rather foreign response, as I had been raised in Christian Science and had witnessed many healings while growing up and as a young adult. So why the doubt? What was influencing me?
Simply put, it was fear. This realization launched me into deep study. As the divine idea of God, each of us is made “in His image and likeness,” eternally at one with Him, and so always being communicated to by our divine Parent (see Genesis 1:26, 27). Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, speaks about the qualities of that communication, noting that true thoughts are “God’s thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality …” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 581). These can never be undermining or producing dark thoughts of fear. We can label dark thoughts as clearly not from God. The Bible addresses how to deal with such thoughts: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).
