Article February 14, 1942 Issue

Problems and Progress

[Written Especially for Young People]

NATALIE G. FORCE

When one is keenly interested in participating in any particular work or sport, he usually regards the difficulties in connection with it as a welcome opportunity to test his skill. The good golfer likes to play on a hazardous course, the music student to master technical difficulties, while the skilled manual worker or business person assumes with joy a more exacting or responsible position. So why should we, as Christian Scientists, ever feel dismayed when problems present themselves? Should we not rather regard them as tests of our present understanding, through which we shall progress to higher concepts of Truth?

Progress, as considered in Christian Science, relates to the stages of human experience by means of which the false gives place to the true. The real man does not progress toward a state of harmonious being, since he is already in full possession of all that constitutes the realization of infinite good. He can never be outside divine Principle, Love, which imparts health and abundance, and never fails to support and guide. Experience, when rightly viewed, brings the recognition of the perfection eternally established in divine Mind, and the progressive discernment of this fact by the human mind is genuine progress.

When he learns that progress is mental and spiritual, the young Christian Scientist may say: Must I discard my school and social activities? Should I ignore the necessity for getting a job and earning a living? Christian Science does not require the relinquishment of any such aims or pleasures when they are honest and wholesome, nor does it eliminate the right use of humanly educational processes. Instead, the application of scientific thinking starts with one's present state of experience, and it makes one a better student and athlete, it leads to the formation of pleasant and mutually useful associations, and it enables one to find his right place in the business world.

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