A boy wants an elephant. A young woman wants to marry a millionaire. An obscure councilman wants to be President. Are these people "thinking big?" When are big thoughts a virtue?

If the boy wanting an elephant were a mahout in India, his desire might seem normal. But if he is an apartment dweller in a large city, it is impractical daydreaming.

Does the young woman want to marry a good man and use her share of the million dollars for the benefit of mankind, or is she solely thinking of herself, desiring to attract envy and live in luxury?

Similarly, the honest politician striving for the good of mankind above selfish interests could do much good in an authoritative position, but someone who merely enjoys personal adulation and popularity would be next to worthless in high office.

Obviously, then, while "thinking big" in the truest sense is desirable, there is a lot more to it than merely thinking about big things. Worthwhile mental activity involves knowing, in some measure, what actually constitutes good and desiring to mold one's consciousness and life to conform to it. This motivating sense of good is really a sense of what God is and what He is eternally doing to bless His creation.

God, who is man's only cause—who made man in His image, as the Bible declares—makes him good, loving, happy, truthful, strong, and active. He makes him wholly spiritual and gives him spiritual strength, abundance, health, and wisdom. What material thing can compare with this—an elephant, a million dollars, a throne? Realizing that in our real being we already have all true good opens our consciousness to seeing good qualities present at all times. We do not just hope for some future stroke of fate to grant our desires or make willful plans to get the things we want. We have an awareness of what is truly, spiritually, to be desired, and let our human wishes fall into line with this. Then we find that everything good and right for us is supplied through the wisdom and love of our Father, our creator, God.

Really "thinking big" is not selfish. In Isaiah we have this exhortation: "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." ^{Isa. 54:2} To do this as we are taught in Christian Science involves spreading the tent of our thinking to include all mankind, all of them actually God's ideas, in one love.

Even despots, delinquents, degenerates? Yes, those too, but not as they seem to be. If we remember that God, the loving Father and Mother of us all, in His eternal, infinite wisdom and love has made and could make only good, we find we can follow the example of Christ Jesus and discern good right where evil seems to be. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." ^{Science and Health, pp. 476,477}

Yes, this correct view also healed the sinning and raised the dead. How or where could we find a more practical example of the power of correct "big thinking"? It even enabled Jesus to walk unharmed through an angry mob intent upon his destruction. His tent was enlarged to include all ideas as the perfect sons and daughters of God, incapable of any evil. Universal, spiritual love and understanding of man's true nature were a protection to him. And so they can be to you and me if we enlarge our outlook and outreach to recognize that all mankind—next door or half a world away—are, in reality, the children of God, perfect, loving, spiritual. We are required to do this if we are ever to attain the harmony of heaven, salvation.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it." ^{p. 57} And in the Manual of The Mother Church, in the last line of the inspiring and beautiful prayer that members of this church pray daily, she gives these words: "And may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" ^{Man., Art. VIII, Sect. 4} Praying this prayer with understanding and sincerity, excluding no one and including all as God makes and knows them, is really "thinking big."