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Discover your spiritual potential
“Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is a more difficult task.” When I first came across those words, on page 225 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, I wondered how Mary Baker Eddy could dismiss such a major phenomenon as the abolition of slavery, in favor of what seemed to me an ephemeral idea—freedom from material sense. But I was new to Christian Science then. Over time, I have come to appreciate what Mrs. Eddy must have meant, as I have tried to overcome one challenge after another, finding spiritual healing in all sorts of situations.
Mrs. Eddy says elsewhere on the same page, “Men and women of all climes and races are still in bondage to material sense, ignorant how to obtain their freedom.” It is materiality, or an earthbound sense of things, that would blind us to God’s harmony. But spiritual sense contradicts this, and tells us the truth about ourselves and our fellow man. Good is all God made—that is the truth.
As a newcomer to Christian Science, I was steeped in the belief that man is guilty of original sin. Accepting the idea of spiritual perfection was a daunting task at first. But I saw that the Scriptures are full of these declarations. Genesis 1 states, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (verse 31). The book of Ecclesiastes adds, “Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it” (3:14). Knowledge of our spiritual nature removes fear, anxiety, uncertainty, ignorance, human limitations, and anything that would impede our progress. And it uncovers our potential. We come to see ourselves as God’s image, complete and whole and unfallen, capable of expressing unlimited goodness and grace.
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