In my neighborhood the number of people with high-paying jobs is small. But the number of people betting on the numbers game and the races is big. A sign, "One way to EA$Y STREET," points to where you can make bets. The bets can be small, as little as fifty cents. But the odds against winning are big—five hundred to one, or worse. Nearly everyone loses much more than he ever wins. But knowing that doesn't always make it easy to stop betting.

Getting off that "street" and getting onto the road of certain and definite good is something worth aiming for.

There is good reason for hope. Not hope that is tied to something chancy, like gambling, but hope that is rooted in good itself. God is good. His laws are spiritual and definite and good. He has no laws of chance, and His power supports none. He is all-powerful divine Love, and in His universe there is only what expresses Him. Each one of us is in fact the very reflection of this infinite Love, the eternal beneficiary of the law of unending good.

So God is where we need to put our hope. When we follow His lead—when we look to the true, spiritual nature of His kingdom and strive to live up to it—we put ourselves under His law. This in turn cuts the drag and downward pull that come from acting as if there were laws of chance. And that's how we're acting if we play the numbers game or bet on the races.

I have read the twenty-third Psalm many times. You may have read it many times, too. But read part of it again now and see if it doesn't say something new to you. "He [God] leadeth me beside the still waters. ... He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. ... Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." ^{Ps. 23:2, 3, 6.} What was true for the Psalmist is true for you and me today. Can you see this? God leads us. God gives us His truth. We follow Him. We live His truth, express His qualities. And as we follow Him, goodness and mercy follow us! Goodness and mercy are qualities of God. Other qualities of God are love and health and happiness. They follow us. Or to put it another way, they are part of our lives as we follow God—as we bring our thinking and acting into line with His laws.

Christ Jesus knew we could do this. He knew that we could be good and trust God, good. And when we trust good and express goodness, we see more and still more goodness pour into our lives. More mercy, more love, more happiness, more health. But Christ Jesus also knew we can't do both. We can't put our trust in God and follow Him while we also put our trust in chance. Jesus said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." ^{Matt. 6:24.} A modern translation puts it, "You cannot serve both God and the power of money." ^{J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English, rev. ed. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972).}

So even if we had the money to spare and just put a little of it on the races or in the numbers game, we would be letting chance creep into our lives. And that isn't the way God's law works. We have to make the first move. We have to step away from things like buying lottery tickets, things of chance, before we can follow God's lead along the road to spiritual good, spiritual understanding, love and health and happiness.

Mrs. Eddy once wrote, "Be sure that God directs your way; then, hasten to follow under every circumstance." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 117.} There's no promise that it will be easy. But the more we do follow God, the more untouched we'll be by things of chance. And the more we'll find in our lives whatever we need to be happy and healthy and good.