Away at college in his freshman year, our son called in distress. He seemed overworked, stressed, and generally unhappy. It was a sharp contrast to the son we’d left at school a few months before—happy, easygoing, and always surrounded by friends. As a parent, it can be hard not to feel worried when you get a call like this when your child is far from home. Of course, I listened and shared words of encouragement. When I later recounted the phone call to my husband, his response was definitive: “Don’t take the bait!”

I knew my husband wasn’t trying to be uncaring or stoic, and I caught the spirit of what he was saying. He was telling me not to buy into the idea that the depressing picture our son was describing was in fact the true reality. We didn’t have to get wrapped up in anxiety or drama, but we could stay spiritually poised and therefore be more helpful to our son.

In many places throughout the Bible we see individuals presented with “bait.” 

When a piece of bait is dangled in front of a fish, it may look very tempting, but trying to eat it will cause the fish to get hooked, and it becomes difficult for the fish to get free. We knew our son was naturally happy, enthusiastic, and capable. Understanding that in reality he was entirely spiritual—created, loved, and cared for by God, who is his ever-present Parent—how could we buy into the alternative picture luring our thought? It was important to stay clear of that “bait” so that we didn’t get hooked on the same line that seemed to be keeping our son from “swimming” forward freely. 

This situation was not unique or original to my husband and me, but a stale, old human tale of how feelings of sadness, discouragement, sickness, or lack can attempt to thwart the harmony and progress of man. 

In many places throughout the Bible we see individuals presented with “bait,” or being tempted in a wrong direction, or into believing lies about life. However, the Bible alerts us to these lies and guides us in rejecting any thoughts that could tangle us up and keep us from realizing our God-given health and harmony.

One of the most familiar stories is in the third chapter of Genesis—part of the allegory of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. In this tale, Eve seems contented in the garden, where God has provided for all her needs, when a talking serpent comes along. Hissing a tale of discontent, he attempts to convince Eve that her life is not complete, injecting doubt and dissatisfaction into her thought. 

She takes the bait and eats from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (2:17), looking to find fulfillment in knowledge she thinks she needs and is lacking. Adam follows suit and adopts a similar view. And so, from this one little seed of discontent that the serpent sows, Adam and Eve soon see themselves as cursed and flawed and destined to walk in sadness for the rest of their days. 

The talking serpent, of course, is not a literal being created by God, but a metaphor for evil and chaos. We can see the serpent not as a creation of God, but as a symbol of evil’s imaginary, erroneous influence on our thinking, which would lead us away from God and goodness, and into the distractions and discords of material belief. 

So where do these erroneous, chaotic suggestions come from? As we grow in spiritual understanding, we increasingly learn that they are nothing but an illusion, or a false claim, because they do not come from God. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “The testimony of the serpent is significant of the illusion of error, of the false claims that misrepresent God, good” (p. 538).

In the first chapter of Genesis, the true account of the creation of the universe, there is no mention of evil, or sadness, sin, sickness, or death. A study of this chapter helps us see that these are not part of God’s creation and therefore never had a place in man or in the universe. 

In chapter one of Genesis, God reveals that all men and women, and, in fact, all God’s creatures, are purely spiritual. The chapter goes on in great detail to describe how God “blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (verse 28). 

After blessing men and women as His spiritual reflection, God shows them to be established on a firm basis, having “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (verse 28). Genesis then shows that God sustains every creature (see verses 29, 30) and finishes off with a strong and lasting declaration of the inherent worth, or goodness, of “every thing that he had made” (verse 31).

The story of Adam and Eve, beginning in Genesis, chapter two, illustrates how an opposite view of men and women, as broken, material, and incomplete mortals, leads us astray into sorrow and dissatisfaction. Unlike Eve, the spiritual men and women of God’s creating know themselves to be all good. They have no other consciousness but good, and in God’s kingdom there are no lies to tempt them.

Christ Jesus demonstrates how we can effectively rid ourselves of false suggestions that would try to derail our life and progress. 

Another important “don’t take the bait” occurrence is recounted in the New Testament of the Bible, and yet there is an entirely different outcome from what happened in Genesis 3. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter four, Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, demonstrates how we can effectively rid ourselves of false suggestions that would try to derail our life and progress. 

In this story, found in three of the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, Jesus is confronted with three temptations,  coming to him from “the devil” or “Satan.” This chapter of Matthew recounts a period when Jesus was alone in the wilderness. After he spent forty days and nights praying and preparing for his ministry, “the tempter came to him” (verse 3). Two of the suggestions, like that initial serpent lie that came to Adam and Eve, were meant to convince Jesus that God was not adequately providing for his needs and that he would be nourished, enriched, and successful by following the devil’s false promises rather than by worshipping God. 

Jesus quickly rejects, without hesitation, each lie as it comes to him. And then to ensure that these destructive beliefs will no longer occupy his thought, he firmly banishes them, saying, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (verse 10). 

The result? There is no other evidence in the Gospels of Jesus being similarly tempted by “the devil,” or evil.

What would today’s serpent look like? For each of us, this may be different. It might come in the form of anxiety, stress, worry, or fear, such as the suggestions our son at college was being tempted to believe. The “serpent” might try to dangle in front of our thought deceptions about our self-worth or safety or health. It could seem to be our own thinking or appear to be some fear voiced from a well-meaning family member or friend. Any thought or fear coming to us that is not in line with the well-established truth in the first chapter of Genesis and in Christ Jesus’ teachings must be cast out. 

Learning from Christ Jesus’ example, I’ve found that there are two important ways to ensure that we will not take the bait and fall for lies about our health and harmony.

• Learn to recognize the “hiss” of the serpent speaking audibly or silently to your thought for what it is—a suggestion that God is not meeting our needs. 

• Become so discerning and convinced of the truth we learn in Christian Science of man’s established goodness as God’s own child, that any fear that claims the opposite will fail to gain traction in our thinking and will disappear. 

This was what my husband and I realized as we took a firm prayerful stand that night for the truth about our son. Refusing to take the bait, and discarding the lies that were tempting our son and us, we had a peaceful night and knew that all was well. The next day we found, as we expected, that this mist of gloomy thinking had completely cleared. When we talked to our son, it was as if the conversation the night before had never happened. As Mary Baker Eddy assures us, “The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error, and man’s real existence as a child of God comes to light” (Science and Health, pp. 288–289). 

Through the past year and a half, though sometimes still tempted by fear or concern, we have always been able to recognize the “bait” for what it is and maintain that clear understanding of our son’s permanent harmony and goodness. And our son has continued to flourish and prosper at school. 

It is important to know ourselves and our loved ones as God knows us and be so convinced of our inherent, permanent goodness and harmony that we can’t be drawn into or hooked by the false fears about life and man that swirl around in the mist of material thinking. 

Taking our stand for the established dominion and goodness of man, we can refuse to take the bait. Then the lies fade from view, and we “swim on” freely.