The Divine Being, God, is constant, unfluctuating. All spiritual reality is based on His nature. Good, as the evidence of God and His allness, is also undeviating, reliable, spiritually solid. It does not move about or disappear but remains steady, unvarying.

The material senses would suggest otherwise. The mist arising in the second account of creation in Genesis introduces the notion of variable good. Mystification, compounded by a talking serpent, claims to have influenced man to believe in more than one power. This implies dualism—God as good and evil.

But mortal misconception can never establish evil as real or related to God. The false sense is forever unlocated, unhoused. It can find no dwelling in man, the perfect likeness of God, good. Man is never susceptible to mortal mentality or inconsistency.

Interestingly, the human concept of unstable good has ancient roots. The words precarious and prayer share the same Latin root seen in precan, meaning "to entreat." This sense of prayer implies a not-so-reliable petitioning, a begging for favor that may or may not be granted.

In Christian Science, prayer is essentially a conscious at-one-ment with God, an acknowledgment of His supreme all-power and goodness. Although it may include petition, it does not address a supermortal being who might withhold good or turn a deaf ear to one's plea. Praying to God as his Father, Christ Jesus declared, "I knew that thou hearest me always." ^{John 11:42.}

Are chronic ill health, destructive accident, age-induced decay, exceptions to the spiritual law of good's dependability? Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, points out the falsity of such claims. She writes: "Good cannot result in evil. As God Himself is good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be immortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirituality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and cannot be the outcome of an infinite God, good." ^{Science and Health, p. 277.}

The Scriptures speak of God as good. Nahum tells us, "The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him." ^{Nah. 1:7.} In Lamentations we read, "The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him." ^{Lam. 3:25.} Each of these statements implies a necessary condition for our truly experiencing the goodness of the Lord—that is, understanding the basic, immutable premise that God is good.

A young friend of mine has had unimpeachable proof of this. Always sickly as a child, growing up in a difficult family situation, she had a great love of God but became increasingly dissatisfied with an orthodox view of Him.

While a university student, she became friendly with a faculty member, a Christian Scientist, who was ready to share her understanding of God's goodness. My friend began to study Christian Science. Career challenges were mastered; relationship problems with her family were resolved. Her health improved, and she was freed of chronic suffering from various allergies.

A social drinker, this young woman had never understood that voluntarily submitting to the effects of alcohol means relinquishing dominion over one's experience and believing in a power other than God. During summer employment with a family of Christian Scientists, she learned from her employer of the need for a persistent search for truth. Soon, study of the daily Lesson-Sermon ^{In the Christian Science Quarterly.} became vital to her day. The social drinking was abandoned without a struggle. She also applied, and was accepted, for membership in The Mother Church and a branch church.

Her discovery that good is spiritual and can always be found when sought in God had radically altered her life for the better. Friends who had not seen her for a year were astounded by the change in her. Practice of the truths she was learning had improved her entire outlook, and she has since helped others to find this freedom.

These lines from the poem "Satisfied" by Mrs. Eddy provide clear direction in our search for health and joy. Fear, sickness, poverty, are dispelled as we really grasp the basic truth—"Our God is good." The earnest searcher discovers that good is available without limit at any time, in any place, under every circumstance.

Precarious good?

Impossible!