Before I share some exciting insights that have just been dawning, want to say something about my not taking comments on my blog: since I identify myself, feel strongly those who have thoughts to express should do likewise. I understand that with a blog as widely read as this one is, there might be the desire to keep private one's identity. But the solution to this is, send me an email or call me up. What you have to say will, of course, be kept confidential. I would love to hear from you! And if comments are off the mark ( as some have been) or downright inappropriate, I know how to deal with them. So...
Now, have been thinking quite deeply about something our beloved Master said in the parable known as the Prodigal. "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." As never before, the thought of present tense has stood out. Is ours right now. How can our loving Father give to us His children more than all?And just last night was reading some lines from the Christian Science textbook when this jumped out. I have long known these truths, but obviously on a more intellectual level. Mrs. Eddy is speaking of error trying to assert its superiority over Truth and she writes: "I can open your eyes. I can do what God has not done for you. Bow down to me and have another god. Only admit that I am real, that sin and sense are more pleasant to the eyes than spiritual Life, more to be desired than Truth, and I shall know you, and you will be mine. Thus Spirit and flesh war." This is on page 530 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures."
Like a thunderbolt, I saw why of course, the serpent or carnal mind or whatever we wish to call it, is trying to make us think God's work not already done. That somehow His work is incomplete, that if we only acknowledge another power--slander God in effect--then the good we need will someday, perhaps, come to pass. This insight alone make Christian Science a treasure to me.
Then, was recalling something an early worker who served in our Leader's household wrote. Martha Wilcox is well know to many in the Field as a marvelously clear expounder of divine metaphysics, and she said in essence--the reason why students of Science do not get results is that they are praying, working with the thought that what they are knowing will do the job in the future. They are not praying from the standpoint of God's work being done, of present perfection. They are not realizing what is the divine fact now and always.
And will give the words of Jesus that back this up. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He did not say, know the error and you will find freedom, did he?
And to add one more statement from the textbook which ties this up better than I ever could: "Man is God's reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever beautiful and complete." (page 527)
