Article October 12, 1929 Issue

Wrestlings

ANNIE M. KNOTT

It is very interesting to ponder the various references to wrestlings found in the Bible and also in Mrs. Eddy's writings. Most Bible students are familiar with Paul's words in the sixth chapter of Ephesians, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against ... the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

Often may we recall Jacob's wrestling at Peniel, when through the long hours of night the mortal, material sense of being strove against spiritual sense, representing the divine idea or man's true selfhood. In those hours Jacob doubtless saw in vivid panorama his boyhood, youth, and early manhood, the high hopes, the gleams of light, and also the entangling illusions of a sense of life apart from God, and the once loved brother, Esau, coming to meet him, perchance as a deadly enemy. Slight, indeed, were Jacob's prospects, humanly speaking, as Esau approached with four hundred men. But in the long mental struggle the divine idea prevailed over mortal belief and, as we read on page 308 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, Jacob "was transformed." Nor was this all, for the results of the momentous struggle reached his brother, and they met, no longer hardened by cruel ambition for getting, but softened and inspired and made ready for the greater blessedness of giving.

Who can tell how far one spiritual victory may reach? May not we of to-day make Jacob's experience our own through the understanding gained in Christian Science, and even in the darkest hour see God "face to face" and live to nobler ends because of this seeing? Our Leader's words in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 10) are deeply significant here: "When the human mind is advancing above itself towards the Divine, it is subjugating the body, subduing matter, taking steps outward and upwards. This upward tendency of humanity will finally gain the scope of Jacob's vision, and rise from sense to Soul, from earth to heaven."

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Earnest Study
October 12, 1929
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