The road stretches out. Perhaps the individual does not yet see very far into the distance. But he proceeds unafraid. He even looks forward to the discoveries, adventures, and challenges ahead.

Why? He is walking the road of demonstration, leading up to new vistas of spiritual life and reality. And God's guidance can be felt each step of the way. The counsel, love, protection, even the healing that may be needed, are ever available. Divine Principle, Soul, points the way—away from the pursuit of material aims and ambitions and toward the goal of salvation, spirituality, and universal blessing.

The patriarch Enoch must have traveled such a "road." The Bible doesn't tell us a great deal about Enoch's life. Actually, only a few verses reveal anything at all about his human experience. But what we do learn in those verses is quite remarkable. We read that Enoch lived for an extraordinary period of years on earth. And then we're told, "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." ^{Gen. 5:24.}

Enoch apparently didn't hold himself at arm's length from God; nor did he oppose the divine will and direction. He didn't separate himself from the source and sustenance of his true being; and he must not have followed the world's ramblings nor listened to mortality's misleadings. Instead, as the Bible poetically narrates, Enoch walked with God. And he found his eternal oneness with the Father. The "road" for Enoch, then, had been an upward path. He entered the holy place prepared for all of us, because he served God. The scriptural account of Enoch's experience can be seen as vivid testimony to the scientific fact that man, the emanation of divine Love, is never estranged from God.

Here is the key. To walk with the Father (that is, to understand and demonstrate man's inviolate relationship to Spirit, Soul), we must be constantly faithful to one infinite God. We must maintain a steadfast recognition of the great spiritual facts of being— such facts as: God is supreme, omnipotent Mind; all creation is the perfect outcome of Mind; Principle maintains the entire universe, under the control and government of divine law; man, made in the likeness of God, divine Spirit, is spiritual, eternal, whole, free; man abides only in the realm of Love and is never separated from good. The truths of immortal being are universal, providing sustenance and direction for each of us.

Such pure, spiritual reasoning blesses our lives. Inspired, we are led to discern that the relationship between God and man forever remains intact, unbroken. Man's very being is fulfilling the Father's perfect design for His creation: to glorify and bear witness to the Divine Being, to express His goodness and power. In our conscious unity with divine Love, as Love's exact reflection—this is where we discover our true purpose and stature and perceive man's nobility as the child of God.

One Bible commentary makes a useful observation about the merely temporal accomplishments of many people, as distinguished from the lasting contribution of a life such as Enoch's. The commentary implies that the importance of what many men achieve may in time fade: "Their achievements have to do only with material things. They may sew their tents, raise their cattle, make their musical instruments, and work in brass and iron.... But the man who towers in meaning above all others is the man who walks with God." ^{The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 1 (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1952), p. 530 .}

This is not to denigrate the place of normal and needful human employment, but rather to establish a new framework for its accomplishment and purpose: to bring to it a deep love of God and His creation; to worship and honor Him in all that we do. When we set out to serve only God's will—to "walk" with God—we find lasting satisfaction and worth in our endeavors.

One might say that Enoch lived a life of ascension, in that his journey progressively took him beyond mortal sense to the immortal. As we stay close to Principle—perceiving the true nature of existence as God-established and spiritual (never material), one with Mind, inseparable from Soul—we too can move forward in proving, step by step, the permanent continuity of being. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy comments, "If Enoch's perception had been confined to the evidence before his material senses, he could never have 'walked with God,' nor been guided into the demonstration of life eternal." ^{Science and Health, p. 214.} We will do well to consistently examine our own thinking to determine if we are confining our view of reality to the mortal testimony or if we are progressively breaking the fetters of material-mindedness.

The Master, Christ Jesus, shattered all the bonds of mortal limitation. He healed sickness; redeemed sinners; raised the dead; was himself resurrected. And he ascended. There can be no question that Jesus' whole experience portrayed an intimate companionship with the Father, a deep reliance on Mind's direction. In a way no one else ever had, he truly walked with God—even as he traversed the city streets and countryside of Judea to carry his sacred ministry to the people. Never before had such God-impelled love and Mind-inspired wisdom been imparted to humanity. Many thereby recognized Jesus as Saviour. Mrs. Eddy declares of our Master: "Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause." ^{Ibid., p. 313.}

Although Jesus' life-purpose is unparalleled, there is a significant point in common between the experience of Enoch, who was not restricted by the testimony of the material senses, and the unique example of Christ Jesus. As the Saviour, Jesus saw through all the illusory presentments of matter and uncovered the spiritual cause. But the universal Christ, Truth, had also touched Enoch. Neither Jesus nor Enoch was deceived by physical sense; as they followed Truth's leading, neither took the road of mortality and its false, limiting claim of life in matter. And Jesus fully revealed, through healing sin and disease and overcoming death, the way to walk in the light of divine Love and lay hold on an immediate, permanent sense of life in God, Spirit.

Referring to Christ Jesus, the New Testament epistle of John affirms, "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked." ^{I John 2:6.} Infinite opportunities for progress, new possibilities for grander works of healing and regeneration, the glorious realization of unbounded being—all these await us as we take the Master's lead and walk with God.

WILLIAM E. MOODY