Overcoming resistance to spiritual progress

Have you ever felt a reluctance to progress spiritually? As I was thinking about this one day, a paragraph in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy came to mind. It has the marginal heading “Exalted thought” and concludes, “. . . the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress” (p. 506). This spoke to me of the importance of continually yielding to the divine Mind, God, who is always giving us fresh, exalted thoughts to lift us to a spiritual view of creation, which includes each of us. 

But what if we feel stuck or otherwise unable to do this yielding? How can we get past that seeming resistance? Reluctance may take obvious forms, such as “I just don’t feel like it,” “I don’t know how,” or “I’ll work on it next week.” Or, it may be more subtle—world thought that we may not even realize is influencing us. It may suggest, “It’s time for someone else to figure this out,” “My prayer won’t do any good anyway,” or “I’m happy if this is the only problem I have.”  

These are all forms of impersonal resistance to spiritual progress, and the Bible, the authoritative Word of God, contains countless powerful truths that can help us overcome them. For example, Job, who faced many physical struggles as well as persistent discouraging arguments from his friends, seemed to have good reason to be reluctant to go forward. But instead he affirmed God’s nature in this prayer: “He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me” (Job 23:13, 14)—which enabled him to keep progressing.