The individual who looks to God for his ability will find himself equal to every challenge. Indeed, Christian Science teaches that God in His great wisdom and unspeakable love has so indissolubly bound man to Him, as His reflection, that man has no existence apart from his divine source. It follows that the only demands upon man are God's demands and that coincident with the demand, He provides the means for meeting it—through reflection. Mary Baker Eddy clearly indicates in this passage from "Miscellaneous Writings" that the divine demand includes its supply (p. 16): "The Principle of Christianity is infinite: it is indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human; and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being His likeness and image, man must reflect the full dominion of Spirit—even its supremacy over sin, sickness, and death."

Thus we see that whatever one is required to do spiritually, he is empowered to do. The intelligence and strength we need to perform our daily appointed tasks are ours, not through personal effort, but by the ability our reflection of divine power confers upon us. Mrs. Eddy points to this conclusion in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 199): "Hence the great fact that Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its mandate,—by reason of its demand for and supply of power."

This remarkable mandate by which Mind simultaneously demands and supplies power to man is implied in the spiritual record of creation, found in the first chapter of Genesis. There it is written: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over . . . all the earth. . . . And God . . . said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply . . . and have dominion . . . over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (verses 26, 28). Here, then, do we have the spiritual basis of man's fruition and fulfillment, for according to divine decree, God fulfills in man what He demands of him. If, then, an activity or project seems right and desirable, we look to divine Mind for the necessary intelligence and vision to take up and carry on the work. Right activity and orderly unfoldment evidence Principle's rule of our lives. Love's abundant provision, its infinite reserve of good, is sufficient to meet every demand.

We free ourselves from the limiting bonds of personal sense and of all fear of inadequacy by establishing in consciousness that which is true of man as God's reflection and then by daring to act consistently with that truth. Decision regarding our activity and progress should be made from the standpoint that if our motives are God-inspired and God-impelled, the true, substantial resources with which to meet every attendant demand will be God-supplied in the measure of the Bible promise (Phil. 4:19): "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

Therefore, when a sense of strain or pressure may argue, or when we may feel that we have reached the limits of our endurance, let us turn to God in prayer for the vision to see that we already have from Him everything we need to carry on. Man is not the cause of his own action, but the effect of the divine omniaction.

On page 385 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "The spiritual demand, quelling the material, supplies energy and endurance surpassing all other aids, and forestalls the penalty which our beliefs would attach to our best deeds." Truly we can draw upon the infinite resources of Life itself, and these spiritual resources are perpetually new.

Man's energies do not, then, wear out as the day wears on. The reflection of Life is ever as alert and free as must be life itself. The wisdom and love of God are constant qualities reflected by man. Hence, Love's manifestation has an inexhaustible, eternal store of strength, love, and understanding. Since God changes not, His reflecting cannot ebb and flow in the expression of the qualities which constitute his being. Since God is good and imparts only good, man can experience only the cumulative effects of good.

These spiritual facts are quite different from what human education teaches about the origin and possibilities of man. Mortal mind, or the belief of life and intelligence in matter, oppressively declares that an individual can have only as much freedom and do as much good as it decrees. Yet, surely that which has no claim upon man can make no demands upon him. The demands of God are upon man, not matter, and matter cannot oppose them.

Since he is spiritual and God is his Life, man is not subject to the vicissitudes of belief called discordant or diseased matter, deteriorating or decaying matter, aging matter. The qualities of infinite Mind cannot be manifested through that which Christian Science teaches has no substance, no, intelligence, and no life in it. Man is receptive and responsive only the spiritual impartations and control of Spirit.

A student Christian Science was notified at the beginning of a day that seemed already too filled with pressing demands that an important appointment which she had sought had been unexpectedly arranged for her later that morning. Refusing to admit a sense of consternation because there did not seem to be adequate opportunity for prayerful preparation, she mentally withdrew the bustle about her that she might hear God's guiding voice. Instantly these thoughts came to her: "Reflection is always in the present! You have only to be what you eternally are. You can't do the work of an hour hence, or even of the next moment, now."

She saw that the demand upon reflection for expression is perpetual and that the means for meeting that demand are always at hand. These reassuring words of Christ Jesus flashed into her thought (John 14:10): "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works"; and these words from Job (23:14): "He performeth the thing that is appointed for me." With a sense of peace and poise she kept the appointment and was deeply grateful for its subsequently fruitful outcome.

Indeed, reflection is always in present. It has no ties with the past, no pull of a future. It is in its fullness now. Whatever may appear to be the human situation, we can stop right where we are and realize that the truth of man's at-one-ment with God is the present fact. In an hour of challenge we have only to claim and utilize the power which has been bestowed upon man by divine decree in order to glorify God in demonstration.