"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." These words, written by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, and found in the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p vii), have encouraged students to expect reward for righteous efforts today. The understanding of the ever-present power of the "sustaining infinite" contradicts every dictum of mortal mind, and hence the Christian Scientist must be able to maintain his conviction that delay, procrastination, and lack of fulfillment are not part of God's plan for His children.

A student of Christian Science who had often faced discouraging prospects because of seemingly endless delay concerning many details of his daily experience, decided one day to try to live the spirit of these words: "Today is the most important day of my experience, and now is the most important moment of my day." Immediately he witnessed the results of this attitude of thought in a wider usefulness and a more successful approach to many of the details of his experience which before had discouraged him.

In retrospect he endeavored to understand why there had been this change in his experience. He saw that he had always been waiting for something to happen to him. If he expected good, it was good which would come to him later; but when he accepted the present moment as the most important in his experience, he had to find within the possibilities of that moment all the satisfaction which heretofore he had held only as a future possibility.

When the disciples of Christ Jesus were contemplating the glorious harvest at some future time, the Master discerned the error of their thinking, and said, "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." John recorded the same admonition in the book of Revelation; "Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe."

Mind, infinite Principle, has created the universe. That universe stands today as a complete, harmonious whole. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it. The universe that Mind has created includes man, expressing Mind and needing no addition in order to be perfect. There is never a tomorrow in this creation. All good is available today. In the universe made complete by Mind, man is happy, glorifying his creator, manifesting harmony and well-being. Man, made in God's likeness, is acceptable to God, God, Mind, does not have to try to improve His already perfect creation.

Consequently, today, now, is the time in which to experience harmony. Harmony will never be closer to man than it is today. It was never God's plan for his loved and loving son that the good seed should be sown today but reaped at some future time—a time always retreating into the distance as we approach it. True, it is God alone who develops the seed of our good planting and ripens it; but He knows not any period of time. We can safely rid ourselves of the disheartening superstition that we must go on, day after day, year after year, planting but not harvesting. The joy of reaping and the joy of sowing are coincidental in real being; only erroneous premises and conclusions would attempt to separate the one from the other.

What, after all, are our blessings? Are they not the spiritual ideas which flow from Mind? Matter, taken at its best, is surely never a blessing, for matter is always an illusion, nothingness. In human experience better human conditions are considered as blessings; and so they are in so far as they represent better states of consciousness, a fuller acceptance of divine ideas. What may be considered a blessing by one—a real cause for gratitude from the human standpoint—may not bring any joy to another. This indicates that human conditions in themselves are not the blessings we really deserve.

True blessings, for which we as Christian Scientists pray and seek, appear primarily as right ideas, ideas emanating from Mind. Resolving our needs into ideas, we see that there is no time concerned in the fulfillment of our needs. The child in arithmetic, or the college student in the most intricate calculus, never supposes that he must wait until tomorrow or next year before a required idea will be available for his use. He knows that the idea is available to him whenever he needs it. So, in applying what we know of Christian Science, let us not for an instant expect delay in getting good results. The good we need is available now. Let us thank God for that. "Thrust your sickle in and reap, the time has come to reap" (Moffatt's translation).

There is cause for gratitude for every unfoldment of good in our experience. The good we may do others is often the greatest of our present blessings. We should be grateful for the fact that God supplies ways in which we can help to unload from our brother some cares or fears which bear down heavily upon him. Is not the opportunity to help others always at hand? Today is a wonderful day to him who makes use of his every opportunity to be of service.

We do not need to wait a single moment for true satisfaction. What greater present cause for gratitude is there than the fundamental fact that there is one omnipotent God, divine Mind, and that this Mind is expressed in a perfect creation, wherein dwelleth man? Today and now we can shout for joy, and feel the present truth of Mrs. Eddy's words (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 385):