It's hard to be grateful when one is crawling along a packed four-lane expressway, with cars stretched as far as the eye can see. The impatient urge is to step on the accelerator and move. Recently I heard over my car radio a traffic report on the highway I was traveling: "Slow and go, no tie-ups, no accidents." At once I began to appreciate the orderly forward motion of those many cars. At least we were moving!

Gratitude is a primary requisite. In some respects dealing with a traffic jam can be likened to our progress in Christian Science in meeting a challenge that seems prolonged.

When progress seems slow at times, there is something to be said for quietly proceeding at a steady pace—not with resignation—but with assurance of the goal. We will get there. What is perfect, complete, and harmonious is right now the state of our true being. This perfection appears humanly to unfold in stages or degrees; as the veil of material thinking is lifted, spiritual expansion takes place. Paul's assurance is heartening—that we will "all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." ^{Eph. 4:13;}

Better slow and go than slow and stop, or slow and stall, or slow and backslide! Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, tells us, "... however slow, thy success is sure." She prefaces her promise with its condition: "The conscientious are successful. They follow faithfully; through evil or through good report, they work on to the achievement of good; by patience, they inherit the promise. Be active, and, however slow, thy success is sure: toil is triumph; and—thou hast been faithful over a few things." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 340;}

If he doesn't yield to arguments that cause loss of ground, the seeker who is gaining slowly need not be burdened by blame or discouragement. Mrs. Eddy's writings contain many encouraging and illuminating statements about going forward. This one is part of a message to a branch Church of Christ, Scientist: "Press on. The way is narrow at first, but it expands as we walk in it." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 202;} Not as we think of it, dream about it, procrastinate over it, or sit by the roadside. But as we walk in it; action is the keynote—whether slow or fast.

Sometimes it seems we can see much farther intellectually or metaphysically than our daily demonstrations express. Might this not indicate a necessity to give more prayer, thought, and effort to actually showing forth the Christ in daily life? Pure thoughts and acts of Christliness are the seeds that, cultivated, flower into the evergreen of confident understanding and inevitably result in proofs of spiritual fact.

We must begin where we are. If we cannot walk on the water as Christ Jesus did, we can at least put a foot into the water. With faith and the moral courage of a Moses we can see the waters part bit by bit, until we are walking right through the claims of materiality untouched, proceeding step by step on the firm ground of understanding our relationship to God. Acknowledging that all power is of God—and with willingness to listen and be led—what is there to fear or be discouraged by?

Peter attempted walking to Jesus on the water—no doubt with zeal and enthusiasm. Mrs. Eddy says of this account: "Peter's impetuosity was rebuked. He had to learn from experience; so have we." ^{Mis., p. 359;} Zeal and desire, if not sprung from wisdom, could become greater than our proofs, but with divine Mind's direction, they support and give light to our proving. As zeal and desire are spiritualized, our proofs show ever clearer reflections of man's close relationship to God, his at-one-ment with Him. We begin to understand that God reflects Himself in spiritual man and spiritual universe.

Surmounting the more demanding challenges brings glorious resurrections from belief in life in matter and from the limitations of corporeality. What difference how much "time" it takes? God knows nothing of time, because it is a humanly conceived limit.

If we can see only one step, we should take that step. Our vision changes at each step, and it becomes higher and wider as desire is purified and enlarged. "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known," ^{I Cor. 13:12.} we are told in the Bible.

God knows His own eternality and allness. So we need not be bound by time in our progress Spiritward. And if the way seems "slow and go," we can go as far as we can see now. As we move forward without self-condemnation and with faith in God, the next step will inevitably appear.

The victory is always with Truth! Let's not waste a moment in being discouraged over the "slow," but claiming our motivation in Spirit, put all our expectancy and all our perseverance into the "go."