Article March 2, 1957 Issue

EMPOWERED BY DIVINE DECREE

DOROTHY E. KLEIN

The individual who looks to God for his ability will find himself equal to every challenge. Indeed, Christian Science teaches that God in His great wisdom and unspeakable love has so indissolubly bound man to Him, as His reflection, that man has no existence apart from his divine source. It follows that the only demands upon man are God's demands and that coincident with the demand, He provides the means for meeting it—through reflection. Mary Baker Eddy clearly indicates in this passage from "Miscellaneous Writings" that the divine demand includes its supply (p. 16): "The Principle of Christianity is infinite: it is indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human; and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being His likeness and image, man must reflect the full dominion of Spirit—even its supremacy over sin, sickness, and death."

Thus we see that whatever one is required to do spiritually, he is empowered to do. The intelligence and strength we need to perform our daily appointed tasks are ours, not through personal effort, but by the ability our reflection of divine power confers upon us. Mrs. Eddy points to this conclusion in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 199): "Hence the great fact that Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its mandate,—by reason of its demand for and supply of power."

This remarkable mandate by which Mind simultaneously demands and supplies power to man is implied in the spiritual record of creation, found in the first chapter of Genesis. There it is written: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over . . . all the earth. . . . And God . . . said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply . . . and have dominion . . . over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (verses 26, 28). Here, then, do we have the spiritual basis of man's fruition and fulfillment, for according to divine decree, God fulfills in man what He demands of him. If, then, an activity or project seems right and desirable, we look to divine Mind for the necessary intelligence and vision to take up and carry on the work. Right activity and orderly unfoldment evidence Principle's rule of our lives. Love's abundant provision, its infinite reserve of good, is sufficient to meet every demand.

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