Article September 4, 1926 Issue

Footsteps

ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

In the thirty-second psalm we read, "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go." All of us who have seen this way illumined through Christian Science thank God for its revelation that the one thing to be desired is spiritual growth. The only way to progress spiritually is to take, one by one, each step as it unfolds; for the horizon is extended only as we go forward. Our Leader tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 77) that mortals do not "accomplish the change from error to truth at a single bound."

In our human ignorance we do not always see the necessity for taking the awaiting step. It may even seem irrelevant or trivial; but inasmuch as it is all part of the divine plan which infinite wisdom outlines, it is for us to trust our Father-Mother God and take it obediently, promptly, and joyfully. Because we are all brothers, and "in the scientific relation of God to man ... whatever blesses one blesses all" (ibid., p. 206), the taking of our own step oftentimes inspires and encourages another to take the one over which he has been delaying, or awakens him to see one to which he has been blind. Certainly by taking our own steps we are removing the possibility of becoming a stumblingblock to our neighbor.

Sometimes a step which beforehand has seemed small and unimportant, when taken, leads to a wonderful vista of the spiritual universe. So small a thing as to invite lovingly a friend to a Christian Science service has led directly up to the divine source of the impulse and revealed a higher interpretation of a Scriptural passage. Speaking in a Wednesday evening testimony meeting never fails to bring a blessing. How could it fail, since the willingness to stand as a witness to God's power and to let Him use one is fulfilling the very mission for which His ideas are created, is proving man's with the Father, and thus ushering one into man's spiritual, true heritage?

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