Financial lack needn’t impede or threaten our educational progress. Christian Science shows how to relieve the pressure of adverse economic conditions and prove that there is no lack of God’s promise or ability to meet our need.

“We’ve got to be realists!” you might protest. “We just can’t gloss over erosion of our currency or inflation. It’s playing havoc with our lives!” It may look that way. But consider for a moment. It’s said that today’s economic conditions restrict our access to books, food, tuition,
transportation. But are these conditions what really deprive us of expanded educational opportunities?

Trust in matter is actually the fundamental obstacle blocking the fulfillment of educational goals. The acceptance of matter as the source of supply limits the good that can be expressed in our lives. Bitterness about a harsh economic climate may well symptomize a lack of spiritual vision. Spirit, God, is infinite good, infinite substance. Spiritual understanding gives us access to an infinite source of supply. Matter is neither an obstacle to nor a channel of supply. The outpouring of all that Life, Spirit, provides is not subject to material conditions. Spiritual insight probes beyond the material evidence of deprivation and discerns a divine blessing.

“What’s the divine blessing when I’m faced with inflation?” you ask. If inflation is putting a squeeze on our material resources, it’s a blessing to be pushed into realizing that limited quantities of materiality don’t restrict supply. God’s spiritual resources are the only sure basis of supply. Whatever restricts our trust in matter as supply carries a potential blessing with it.

The Bible illustrates this fact. Elisha provided food for one hundred men with twenty loaves of bread. Yet Jesus fed five thousand with just five loaves. Even though Jesus had fifty times as many people to feed, he didn’t grumble because he had fifteen fewer loaves than Elisha. It’s not the quantity of funds but the degree of spiritual understanding that determines our true wealth and abundance. To really follow Jesus we must appreciate the value of spiritual understanding as defining and revealing true substance. This is a practical alternative to the toilsome routine of dependence on accumulation of money to meet our needs.

We can all achieve some degree of spiritual understanding. Simply put, this means that we can all discern to some extent that God is All-in-all. We can at least glimpse that He is all substance, all Life, all Love; that there is no lack of love or substance in this allness. And we can know that man testifies to and reflects this love and substance. In fact, they are limitlessly expressed by man. As these facts are seen they become a potent factor in meeting our financial requirements.

Alongside the marginal heading “Need and supply” in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy makes this statement: “In order to apprehend more, we must put into practice what we already know” (p. 323). A student of the Christ Science recognizes that growth in the apprehension of Truth has significant bearing on the direction and outcome of his academic career. In the area of paying for his education, he realizes the real need is not financial; it is to practice more of spiritual truth in his life.

Theoretical abstract thinking plays a useful role in many students’ education. But that’s not what counts either in spiritual understanding or in the day-to-day practice of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy continues her counsel referred to above by adding, “We must recollect that Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not understood until demonstrated.” Supply is inevitable and our lives are enriched when we live in accord with the spiritual facts of being.

It’s not the quantity of funds but the degree of spiritual understanding that determines our true wealth.

Spiritual understanding moves the heart to a greater love for the campus community. It moves us to respond more unselfishly to the needs of fellow students, to pray for the spiritual insight that will lessen destructively competitive ambition in exams, on the athletic field, and in social clubs. God is unfolding His substance in our lives. This substance is expressed in spiritual qualities. Our need is met as we allow these spiritual qualities more abundant expression in consciousness.

My education was constantly harassed by financial problems. One Christmas vacation it became apparent that I did not have sufficient funds to pay the tuition for the next quarter. I was puzzled. Up until this point, the truths of Christian Science had always enabled me to work out my financial needs. Why should it all end like this? As I read the Gospel of Luke, the parallel between the prodigal son’s penury and my own forcefully struck me. He resolved to go back to his father with this thought: “I … am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants” (Luke 15:18, 19). This change of heart not only restored his sonship, but also brought him wealth—ring, robe, and a feast. The solution to my financial need, I saw, was in this story.

I needed to humbly respond to God, my Father, by serving Him, by yielding more to Love and Truth. I began to realize that this was my basic purpose at school. I sifted out the shallow tendencies to be involved in social cliques and resolved to practice a more universal love. I began to see that I could exemplify through my education the saving influence of Christian Science. I felt a change of heart as the desire to translate the truths of Christian Science into practice became my sole purpose.

I returned to school without adequate funds to pay the tuition. After I arrived on campus, a friend mentioned that a room was available that would cut my living costs in half. I momentarily doubted: “Well, it must be twice as bad as the room I have now if it’s only half as much.” But I intuitively recognized that this opening was my answer. The room, in fact, was twice as good as anything I’d had earlier. Some of my happiest days were spent there.

As my practice of spiritual truths progressed, transportation back and forth to school was provided. While doing yardwork for some friends, I commented on their second car—a large green station wagon. To my surprise the answer was, “How would you like to have it?” My friends quickly dubbed the car the 4G’s—meaning God’s Great Green Gift.

I was able to carry six friends back and forth to school with all their luggage, and this provided spending money. Income and transportation, then, were both realized without any initial financial resources to rely on. Serving God, practicing good, was the simple idea that opened the way for me to complete my education with plenty of reserves. The Psalmist says, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed” (Psalms 37:3).

Many of us are bargain hunters, looking for the super-saver or discount plan that will remedy the high cost of living. Christian Science gives us a discount that is a real saver. It discounts the importance of materiality and results in our having whatever is essential to well-being. When we accept and practice the substance of Truth and Love, our needs are supplied.