Article January 11, 1913 Issue

DOING OUR BEST

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

It is a confession of half-heartedness, in seeking the kingdom of God, that we are so easily satisfied with being and doing less than our best. It may be that we do not yet fully appreciate the fact, in all its bearings upon our experience, that the sense of evil will not be overcome, so far as we are concerned, until we overcome it; and that we can overcome it only through the power of good, not in any abstract sense, but through our own individual consciousness and demonstration. Thinking to do our work in what may seem the easiest rather than the best way, often means that our work is not done acceptably, which practically means that it is not done at all; and our efforts must therefore be repeated. This becomes evident when we remember that no imperfect work or uncorrected error can be left behind in one's progress Godward. Sooner or later each must overcome the sense of evil in himself, not at one stroke or in one day, but through what the apostle describes as "patient continuance in well doing;" that is, doing the best we can all the time.

Behind all one's business, family, and social relations stands the unchanging divine demand for righteousness, for right thinking and right doing, which relatively means our best thinking and best doing. While we may not at the present time be equal to the demonstration of perfection, there is always a nearest point which we are capable of attaining, and this nearest point to perfection is the best that lies within our reach today, and to reach it is therefore today's problem. Neglecting to accomplish this best possible good, is virtually to give place to evil to that extent; and if this is repeated day after day, each day doing a little less than we might, it is inevitable that an accumulation of unused privilege will confront us when we most need the spiritual strength of which our remissness has deprived us. As our Leader has expressed it, "Unimproved opportunities will rebuke us when we attempt to claim the benefits of an experience we have not made our own" (Science and Health, p. 238).

There is always a best way to think or speak or act, and one is not justified in stopping short of that. So many wrong things are thought, said, and done on the impulse of the moment, before one takes time to consider whether the impulse is human or divine, that it becomes simple wisdom to keep one's better self always to the front and on the alert to discover and follow the divine way. To set ourselves steadfastly to do the very best we can, not what we think we can, would lift us beyond present achievement and into a higher realization of man's unity with God. This opportunity to hasten a nearer approximation to the perfect ideal or Christ-man is too obviously open to each one to be lightly or thoughtlessly disregarded. To neglect any available means of spiritual advancement is to linger in needless conflict or agreement with false sense, and it practically amounts to deliberate choice to be not as good as it is our privilege to be. In other words, though we might hesitate to put it in just that way, we lazily prefer to remain a little longer in the grasp of false belief, rather than to work a little harder than we are now doing.

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DOING OUR BEST

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