Announcer: At a time when there are more opportunities for youth than ever before, many young people still feel limited, left out. They are convinced that few opportunities for employment or education are open to them because of the poor surroundings they grew up in and the poor schools they went to.
Questioner: If I were a dropout without a job or a happy home, perhaps never knowing a father and perhaps being a member of a minority race, I would feel there was no opportunity available for me. What could I do about it?
Speaker: I think we have to begin with the assurance that the barriers of limitation can be broken down. No matter what our background or environment may be, the crack in the wall begins when we discover what we really have to offer. This comes with a change of base in our thinking. Once we have begun to discover what we really have to offer, we will become aware that we can do things that we thought impossible to attempt —such things, perhaps, as looking for a job, raising our scholastic standing to get into a school of our choice, developing a better feeling of communication with our employer or with our parents.
Questioner: What do you mean by what we really have to offer? Do you mean experience in some kind of work or athletics or do you mean, perhaps, scholastic ability?
Speaker: No, I'm speaking of what we really have to offer by way of our infinite worth, ability, capacity, and all the qualities that come to us as man, God's man. We really have to learn what we have to offer as man.

Now, I m not talking about men for the moment. I'm talking about man, and by man I don't mean the limited, mortal man, capable in some ways and handicapped in others. I'm talking about the man whose nature is derived from God and who is endowed with God's gifts.

The Bible brings this out in many ways. For instance (II Cor. 9:8), "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." Now, to me the word "abound" hints at the unlimited possibilities of man as an expression of God, divine Mind. It tells us that man is not limited by matter or by the limited thoughts of the human mind. It refers to our real spiritual self—not the selfish, fearful, hungry self, but the self that's found beneath the surface of appearances.
Questioner: But the real man you're discussing seems unrelated to the conditions mentioned earlier, in which an individual is fearful for his future or uncertain about employment.
Speaker: I think they do relate. There's an inspiring statement in the Bible that I would like to mention (II Tim. 1:7): "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." This message gives one more than just hope that he can do better. It offers a practical basis for gaining assurance and confidence, grasping a feeling of integrity, knowing why we have that integrity; and it establishes our self-respect.
Questioner: But what if someone from an underprivileged area feels that he has nothing to offer? He has never done very well in school. He feels down on himself.
Speaker: Simply put, he needs to hold more steadfastly to the larger view of himself as God knows him. He needs to recognize what he is endowed with, what his heritage is. Nobody can be down on himself if he gets some glimpse of what man made in God's image and likeness already includes. He has unfailing guidance, intelligence, resourcefulness, genuine worth, fearlessness. He has a God-given purpose and capacity.
Questioner: But what if, in comparing himself to someone else, an individual feels that he hasn't gotten his full share in life?
Speaker: He needs to understand what God has given man. And it is up to each of us to become aware of man's true being and nature and the nature of God. He needs to learn to see that he has a complete, whole, spiritual identity, and that he's not just simply a bundle of limited material elements. Along with this new understanding he must claim as his own the intelligence and the other needed qualities already his as God's gifts to man.

This is brought out very well in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 258), "The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God."

And elsewhere she says (ibid., p. 128): "A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity."
Questioner: I'm sure some still wonder how this really helps somebody who comes from a back-ground of racial patterns and economic and social forces that seem completely against him.
Speaker: Let me tell you about someone who was helped in a very practical way. I have a friend who is a Negro and was faced with tremendous barriers at one time in his life. He had never done well in school; he had had little interest in it. He lived by gambling. As a matter of fact, as he put it to me later, he lived by his wits and his fists. And he spent much of his time in bars drinking.

One day he found himself before a judge, and he was sentenced to six years in prison for a shooting. I gather from bits and pieces of conversation with him from time to time that this did not immediately bring him to his senses.

But during his stay in prison he met a Christian Science Field Worker who introduced him to some of the thoughts we have been discussing here. He began to discover his real worth, who he was as the son of God. And he was seeking to express this in his daily life in the prison.

One day after four and a half years of this six-year sentence, he was released from prison. He walked out with assurance and confidence. Today he has a good job, a fine family, and is active in church affairs. He is respected in his community, and he respects himself.

Now, my friend's experience was not just an effort to get himself out of prison.
Questioner: It was something more than that, then?
Speaker: Yes, it was very definitely a religious experience. It was the kind of transformation that takes place in an individual's experience in the degree that he recognizes his unlimited God-given ability. Every individual has God-given identity, purpose, and unlimited capacity to express intelligence and love and to make a unique contribution in life.

This comes to light with his growing understanding that he really has something to offer as God's man. The Bible tells us in the New Testament (James 4:8), "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." Once a man makes a resolution to ''draw nigh to God," life opens up for him and barriers of limitation do fade away.