Article April 3, 1965 Issue

Failure Is Never a Finality

LESLIE C. BELL

Those who base their lives on divine Principle, God, and live in obedience to Principle need never fear failure. The law of God protects them, His divine intelligence directs them, and their work is assured of success. Yet, through a mistaken sense of things, we do sometimes seem to admit the reality of error and so experience what appears to be failure. But we need not accept failure as a finality.

Whatever our human experience we do not lack opportunity to demonstrate God's infinite goodness when we turn fully to Him. Understanding through Christian Science the true nature of God and of man as His image and likeness, we are always at the standpoint of opportunity, not at the mercy of material conditions. In the light of this spiritual understanding, what seems to be a tragedy may be converted into an occasion for great unfoldment of good, and the most hopeless-seeming situation may be resolved into a blessing.

The prophet Elijah was one who believed that his work had been a complete failure; but as he listened to the still small voice of Truth, his thought was uplifted and purified to see that the evidence of the material senses is never true. God, Truth, is never in the earthquake, wind, or fire. The voice of Truth said to Elijah (I Kings 19:13), "What doest thou here, Elijah?" and it continued, "Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus." There fresh opportunity awaited the prophet to carry on his work and rise above the sense of failure.

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