Before we enter a foreign country, our belongings are always checked through customs in order to prevent us from bringing in harmful or illegal items. How much discord could be avoided if one had to pass through a "mental" customs occasionally to have his thoughts checked before they become part of everyday experience!
I'm grateful to have learned of a way whereby one may examine and control his own thoughts before they become acts; and that is by "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Corinthians 10:5). This spiritual method of purifying thought, which Paul advociated centuries ago, is today explained by Christian Science.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, points out the way to maintain harmony in our daily life in Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures. She writes (p. 392): "Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously." How much wiser -- not to mention easier -- it is to stop fearful, angry, anxious, impatient thoughts at the mental gate before they become regretted words and deeds.
Christian Science teaches that one's daily experience is really the outcome or objectification of his thinking. On this basis it shows the importance of conforming motives and desires to the Christly standard Jesus set out for all mankind. It is never conditions outside ourselves or the actions of others that cause us distress, but the thoughts we entertain about them. We are each the master of our own thinking and, consequently, of our experience.
Man, made in God's likeness, is the perfect idea or reflection of infinite, harmonious Mind, and he possesses only those qualities Mind imparts -- peace, joy, abundance, and dominion. The inharmony, confusion, and fear that appear so real do not actually come from God, divine Love, and have no power over us. Such erroneous conditions are only mortal misconceptions, false beliefs, and being so, they can be eliminated or healed by replacing them with the truth of man's inseparable relationship to God.
Recognizing, removing, and replacing harmful, unloving, matter-based thoughts with the evidence of spiritual sense in our personal life does bring healing. I can attest to this as it has happened time and again through the years I've been a student of Christian Science.
And I can assure any reader of this blog that through the spiritual knwoledge that the study of my religion brings, he or she too may successfully control the self-centered, fearful, irritated thinking that so often mars one's health and freedom.
Let me end with something Mrs. Eddy says in Pulpit and Press (p. 3): "Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love."
And as our dear Master, Christ Jesus, commands us: "What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." Never has this been so important for each one us. Our very well-being depends upon it.
