Many people are faced with the question as to whether they are able to cope with their experience. When confronted with complex demands or accumulated frustrations, they may be tempted to run away, to try to escape, to resign. Then is the time to learn the value of prayer. One can realize the presence of God, divine Mind, and reflect the wisdom and strength that always accompany that presence. No situation is beyond the reach of divine Love. After he had faced repeated trials and sometimes very frustrating experiences, Paul came forth with this dynamic statement: "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me." ^{Phil. 4:13;} Very evidently he knew the presence of God that meets all human needs.

To demonstrate the power of God, one must first recognize his need for the higher resources of Soul. He must acknowledge that human intellect and personal ability are insufficient to meet the demands of his experience. This takes humility—an acknowledgment of man's dependence upon God. But this is the open door to a higher understanding of God and a greater freedom in expressing the qualities of God. It clears the way for the inspiration of divine Love to pour into human consciousness.

In speaking of those who need to turn humbly to the Christ, the true idea of God, Mrs. Eddy says, "O ye who leap disdainfully from this rock of ages, return and plant thy steps in Christ, Truth, 'the stone which the builders rejected'! Then will angels administer grace, do thy errands, and be thy dearest allies. The divine law gives to man health and life everlasting—gives a soul to Soul, a present harmony wherein the good man's heart takes hold on heaven, and whose feet can never be moved." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 129;}

In whatever circumstances one may find himself, he has recourse to the Christ. A housewife with a family of children, a businessman with financial obligations, labor relations, and the challenges of competition, the student facing the decisions of morality, both public and private, and the demands of accelerated education, all may feel inadequate to meet their several needs. The individual may ask how God knows anything about his need and how He can meet it.

The sun knows nothing of the particular plant we may have in our garden, yet it supplies the light, warmth, and energy for growth. To understand how God meets human needs, one must begin to realize the perfect nature of God, infinite Spirit, and the perfection of His creation. God is perfect Love, perfect intelligence, perfect Life. This perfection includes the answer to every contingency that may appear in the human scene. There is a right idea, a right quality, a right answer for every demand. And this right answer is available to the earnest seeker. The nature of God, the activity of Truth, the intelligent expression of Mind, denotes the Christ or the manifestation of God that meets human needs.

Jesus came to prove the presence and availability of the Christ in every type of circumstance. He proved that the power of God is represented in man, God's image and likeness, and that each one could come to understand and reflect this in his life. His healings covered the whole range of human experience, even to the ultimate claim of death. He showed that the power of God is here to meet every human need. And this was not for his time only but for any age. In referring to the Christ he said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." ^{Matt. 28:20;}

Mrs. Eddy says, "Hold perpetually this thought,—that it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being." ^{Science and Health, p. 496;}

It is vastly encouraging to anyone to know that he can do what he needs to do and that there is a way to meet the obligations of his experience. That fact in itself is a helpful start. Then one can pursue the understanding of the perfection of being in God's universe and see how he can bring the right inspiration to bear upon his circumstance. Man as God's likeness includes every quality of God, every quality that demonstrates the perfection of real being. As one learns in Christian Science how to pray intelligently and to identify himself as the man of God's creating, he will increasingly feel the divine power guiding his footsteps. This enables the individual to face up to his tasks and meet them.

The ability is from God, and he who understands his relation to God may draw upon this ability daily and continuously. Paul said, "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." ^{II Cor. 9:8.}

William Milford Correll