Solving Chronic Problems

Surely the news must have spread around Jerusalem like wildfire: a man was suddenly able to walk after thirty-eight years of infirmity. It happened by the pool of Bethesda, where so many chronically diseased, blind, and lame people gathered daily. Christ Jesus came and asked him, "Wilt thou be made whole?" And then continued, saying, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." John 5:6, 8; And immediately he was well.

Centuries later another crippled man was quickly healed and enabled to walk. He was well known in the city of Boston. His legs were withered and rigid, his arms useless, and on fine days a policeman took him in a wheelchair to the Common to enjoy the sun. Then Mrs. Eddy came and talked to him of the healing Christ, explaining to him that man is the perfect child of God, and he was healed. Thereafter he walked and lived a normal, active life. See Historical Sketches by Clifford P. Smith, p. 78;

These two cases alone should be enough to convince humanity that no one need continue to suffer year after year from disease and discord, and many more well-documented healings could be cited to support this conclusion. The chronic problem, whether it is physical disease, loneliness, homelessness, lack of supply, or anything else, can be expected to yield to the clear, faithful, insistent declaration of the Christ, Truth—the understanding of man's perfection as the son of God.

Christian Science explains that in truth man is wholly spiritual, created by God, divine Mind, maintained in His likeness. He is immortal, living in eternity, not in time. Human experience, on the other hand, is not true experience but is like a dream, produced by mortal thought and possessing no real substance or permanence. The human body expresses the thoughts that govern the mind of the individual who identifies himself with it. If these thoughts are Christlike—in accord with the divine Mind, or God—the body will be healthy. But if they are from mortal mind—the diseased, discordant thoughts of false, mortal belief—the body will be liable to diseased, discordant conditions.

The way to solve any problem, therefore, is to pour into human thought the truths of real, God-created being—being that is wholly spiritual, reflecting the goodness of God, every whit whole, radiantly healthy, manifesting freedom and strength. This activity of divine Mind through the Christ rids human thought of false, discordant, mortal beliefs. Then, when Truth is established in consciousness, the unhealthy bodily condition vanishes, leaving a realization of present harmony and well-being manifested in healthy human experience.

Since all human conditions are produced and controlled mentally, both acute and chronic discords must respond to the mind that is producing them. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types." Science and Health, p. 246; Therefore it must follow that in order to cure a discord labeled "chronic," the belief of a stubbornly aggressive, chronic discord must be displaced and destroyed by an understanding of eternal, spiritual Truth.

It may sometimes appear that the claims of chronic disease, such as the disabilities often associated with advancing years, are more tenacious than those of the acute—that the chronic problem is more firmly entrenched and more difficult to heal. Referring to these physical disabilities of age, Mrs. Eddy writes, "The acute belief of physical life comes on at a remote period, and is not so disastrous as the chronic belief." p. 247;

The chronic problem at any age is closely associated with the belief of human history. It claims validity because of its apparent progressive development over a period of time, and it produces a chronicle of material data to justify its claims. But a chronicle of dreams can neither justify the claims of an image in a dream nor even prove its existence. When the dreamer wakes from sleep, the dream-image and the chronicle are both gone, never having really existed.

The man whom Jesus healed at Bethesda "had been ... a long time in that case." John 5:6; But with divine logic and justice Jesus dismissed the chronicle of thirty-eight years of disease and reestablished in human consciousness the Christly understanding of the man's true, spiritual, healthy being as God's son, with the result that he was immediately restored to normal activity.

Mrs. Eddy has likewise shown how important it is to dismiss the arguments of personal sense as irrelevant and incompetent. She points out that since the truth is that God, divine Love, is the creator and He eternally maintains His offspring in perfect health and activity, beliefs of discord should always be summarily denied. She writes: "Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin." Science and Health, p. 390.

Furthermore, she has demonstrated that no matter how long the tenure of a discordant condition may seem to have been, or how impressive the historic data that claims to support it, it will yield to the vigorous declaration and realization of spiritual Truth. She has proved that chronic as well as acute disorders can be cured through the clear understanding of man's eternal perfection as God's expression.

Naomi Price

May 29, 1971
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