As long as a trial is considered a trial, it will seem to be one! Conversely, when trials and adversities are viewed as opportunities to awaken us to life in God and to forward our spiritual birth, they have inestimable value. Trials can force us to grow more rapidly toward recognizing our real spiritual identity, which is entirely separate from so-called material existence and material man. Christ Jesus instructed the Pharisee Nicodemus: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. ... Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." ^{John 3:3, 5;}

Regeneration and the spiritualization of mortal consciousness are essential in this emergence from materiality. In science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Mortals must emerge from this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward and upward." ^{Science and Health, p. 552;} This process—the new birth, or spiritual birth—involves changing one's basis from a material sense of God, man, and life to the spiritual sense of creation, in which perfect God and perfect man are the eternal facts of being. The new birth can start anytime. But all too often it takes a trial or sharp experience to turn us willingly to the divine Life, God.

God, infinite Spirit, perfect Mind, created the real man and universe. In God's ever-present, spiritual order, evil and matter, trials and troubles, do not exist or occur. Perfect good is unfolding within the infinitude of God's allness. Health, abundance, perpetual harmony, are all that spiritual man knows.

As if it could deny this eternal truth, the belief of evil—called mortal mind or animal magnetism in Christian Science—claims to have inverted God's spiritual creation. Mortal mind avers that its creation—the material man and universe—is genuine and possesses intelligence, life, and substance. Adversity and inharmony characterize mortal mind's erroneous, material order, which claims power to govern. But evil appears real only in the illusion of the Adam-dream of life in matter. Science explains that material existence is the lie about spiritual reality.

Through scientific prayer and consistent study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, we can find freedom. Tough as they appear to be, trials ultimately yield to steadfast knowing of the divine facts of Life. Proportionably as the omnipresent Christ—the true idea of perfect, spiritual selfhood—dawns upon consciousness and is demonstrated, the illimitable glories of Mind become more perceptible to us. The reality and perfection of our true being appear more substantial. The unreality of evil is discerned. We learn that divine Life is all there is, has been, or ever will be in man's eternal history as God's immortal child. As Christ transforms and spiritualizes us, the new birth is taking place, destroying the very evil beliefs that would produce mortal trials.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Miscellaneous Writings: "With the spiritual birth, man's primitive, sinless, spiritual existence dawns on human thought,—through the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing pleasure and accumulating pains of sense,—by which one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of Spirit and spiritual man." ^{Mis., p. 17;} Final emergence from the material belief in an intelligence, power, and life apart from Spirit, God, is possible. The fact that tremendous spiritual growth is necessary before we can reach this goal should urge us forward, rousing us to lift our thoughts and lives higher today. So let us be eager, even grateful, to meet every trial encountered as we grow spiritually. Let us pray and prove God's law. Then like David, who ran to challenge the giant of Philistia, we will meet trials without being alarmed or harassed. We may find ourselves joyfully echoing David's words to Saul: "Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." ^{I Sam. 17:32.}

As we consistently evaluate trials as opportunities to forward the new birth, to gain spirituality, and to grow in our understanding of divine Principle, we'll cease thinking that evil is real and that we are weighed down by it. Trials will cease to be burdens. They'll become adventures leading us into pathways of spiritual understanding.