Article August 21, 1976 Issue

Self-will: How to Overcome It

ROSALIE B. TREWORGY

One day as a mother was studying her Christian Science books, her daughter came into the room. They had a discussion, but not an altogether harmonious one because the mother did not say what the daughter wanted her to say. The daughter, very displeased, left, slamming the door so hard that the whole room seemed to shake. The mother looked down at the copy of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, lying in her lap, and read these words: "Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,—is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal."^{ Science and Health, p. 306;}

"Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses"! This statement was so appropriate, the mother began laughing, and that broke her sense of inharmony. It melted before the realization that the material senses were not telling the truth. She saw that both she and her daughter were reflections of God. Since God is infinite, All, God's will is the only will. Therefore there could be no self-willed daughter or self-willed mother. There could be no clash of wills at all.

In the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gives the spiritual sense of the line "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" as "Enable us to know,— as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme."^{ ibid., p. 17;} Instead of just asking God to do His will in our experience or in community or world affairs, we can ask Him to show us that His will is unceasingly being done, because He is supreme. God's omnipotence is the only real power ruling in our affairs and in the world. Human self-will is not a power and cannot interfere with God's undeviating government when we realize He is supreme.