Article January 1, 1955 Issue

"I CAN" REPLACES "I CAN'T"

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

DUANE T. YOULD

Sometimes in school, college, or other human activities we are tempted to believe that we are incapable; "I can't" knocks at the door of human consciousness. But as students of Christian Science we have been taught to obey the advice found in Proverbs (3:5,6): "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." So if the suggestion does present itself that hard problems have been assigned to us, either in school or out, we must depend upon Mind, God, as the source of our intelligence. By using what we understand of the nature of God, we can erase "I can't" with the assurance that all things are possible to man as God's reflection.

Doubt of our ability is believing in a selfhood apart from the all-knowing Mind—a selfhood which God did not make. There is no such condition as separateness, for man and his creator are correlated; and for God to know is for man to be confident of his Love-bestowed ability. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Pulpit and Press" (p. 3), "Know, then, that you possess sovereign power to think and act rightly, and that nothing can dispossess you of this heritage and trespass on Love."

Nothing is too difficult when we turn away from the belief of a material creation, or material sense evidence, to the spiritual creation of Soul. One who studies Christian Science systematically and conse-cratedly finds that God leads him in the paths of righteousness. This enables him to prove the truth of our Leader's words in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes (p. 89): "We are all capable of more than we do. The influence or action of Soul confers a freedom, which explains the phenomena of improvisation and the fervor of untutored lips. Matter is neither intelligent nor creative."

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