Article December 10, 1921 Issue

On Doing Our Best

JESSIE BENNETT

When the student of Christian Science has been for some months, perhaps even a year of two, not only a reader of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, but a regular attendant at the Sunday services and the midweek testimony meetings, he begins to take some interest in the various activities of the church, as these are unfolded to him, and to look forward to the time when he, as a member of a branch church or society, will have the privilege of sharing in its work, and so, of helping, in his degree, to spread the Christian Science gospel with its glorious message to mankind. And when the right day for entrance into fellowship with the church has arrived he will find, when the first opportunities for taking part in the work of the church are opened to him, that even for the duty that appears to be the simplest the right metaphysical understanding is requisite if this duty is to be fully and faithfully done.

Whether it be to assist with the ushering in church, to share in the distribution of our periodicals, to take charge, as an occasional substitute at first, of a class in the Christian Science Sunday school, or in some other form of work, there is need for earnest study, for entire consecration of thought, if we are truly to fulfill what we sometimes rather readily promise,—to "do our best."

Do we indeed "do our best," our very best? Because the best of which each one of us is capable is our very utmost. It means that we regard the work undertaken as a really sacred charge, that to this work shall be given all the devotion, energy, perseverance, love ("and the greatest of these is love") of which we are capable. It means that when discouragement, that subtle foe, claims to attack, whispering to us that we are not succeeding in our efforts, that we are not specially adapted to this or that form of service, that some one else could do it much better, and so on, we shall turn on this enemy of Truth with a determined "Get thee behind me;" and then, when the foe is dismissed, we shall so fill thought with the earnest, heartfelt prayer, "That which I see not teach thou me," that full assurance of divine strength and wisdom, always one's for the asking, will come to us, flooding our hearts with faith and courage and joy, a serene and happy confidence that as God is the only employer so surely we can accomplish the work that He gives to us to do.

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