Article April 12, 1975 Issue

Get Outside the Problem

JOHN C. RUSSELL

Difficult problems of all kinds—concerning health, relationships, income, and the like—can be effectively solved through prayer in Christian Science.

Turning to God, divine Mind, for help is the first step in this spiritual type of problem solving. Adherence to the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me,"^{Ex. 20:3;} is a necessity. This means that one has complete reliance on God and is willing to learn more of how God's love and power work for him.

Another requirement could be stated in the classic words, Know thyself. One needs to detect—and eliminate from his thought and character—whatever would tend to obstruct his receptivity to God, good. For many, self-examination may be a difficult hurdle to get over. But through self-examination a person can see whether he is enmeshed within a personal, limited, and material sense of self. Some of the family of negative "self's" may be involved—self-justification, self-will, self-love, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, selfishness, and so on.

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