Article June 19, 1971 Issue

What Do You Mean—"Work"?

VIRGINIA HUBBARD TORBERG

What does "work" mean in Christian Science? Sometimes speakers at Wednesday testimony meetings use the expression "worked as we are taught in Christian Science," and to some the meaning may be obscure.

Mrs. Eddy says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1900, "The song of Christian Science is, 'Work—work—work—watch and pray.'"^{'00., p. 2} Sometimes in a flash of spiritual insight a healing occurs instantaneously, but often the student must earnestly study and pray to lift thought above the mortal beliefs that are deluding him, and the action of lifting his thought is referred to as "work."

When a problem comes into our experience, we must immediately turn our thought to God and recognize who we really are. The first chapter of Genesis tells us, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him" and, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."^{Gen. 1:27} God made man in His image, and since God is Spirit, man is wholly spiritual. This is the only man, and he is right now existing in eternal Life, in unending harmony, health, peace. This real man does not have to be healed of any disease, since he is right now perfect. If we are believing otherwise, we need to separate the truth of man from the belief, the error about him, and see the error as unreal.