Today's exodus is an individual, ongoing adventure. One might say, "Yes, but the Exodus took place under the leadership of Moses in the thirteenth century B.C." What is that Exodus teaching us today? Isn't it an example of God, the I am, leading and guiding thought from its imprisoning bondage to new views of His goodness and mercy and into the Promised Land?

The Israelites were the slaves of Pharaoh, and gaining their freedom necessitated action. They had to rise up, take steps, and move away from bondage toward the Promised Land.

What is our human history telling us? It says that we are made of matter—born on a certain day, at a certain time, in a certain place, in a particular country; that we are male or female, and are of a certain color. It says that we have material ancestors and that they have passed down to us good characteristics and bad characteristics.

We are mistakenly supposed to be subject to certain so-called laws. Medical "laws," for example, based on the concept that we are made of blood, bones, nerves, and brains; and that we are subject to stress and strain, the passing of years, possible loss of sight and hearing, deterioration.

These mortal claims are the present-day bondage—the any-day bondage. They are actually a conglomeration of false beliefs that would restrict, limit, and outline our experience at every turn.

We can think of the promised land as a state of consciousness that has opened to realize eternal, harmonious existence through the understanding of God as an ever–present help. As one begins to realize that today's exodus is a journey away from matter–based living to spiritually founded being, it will be seen that this exodus doesn't belong to any period of time. It is any time, and it is right now.

The New Testament records that Christ Jesus said to Peter and Andrew: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him." ^{Matt. 4:19, 20.} For those two disciples, that was the beginning of their exodus. They were willing to leave their old ways to follow Jesus. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,—this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony." ^{Science and Health, pp. 323–324.} Here again, we are being taught the meaning of the promised land. Just as in Moses' time, we have to act, take steps, and move away from the bondage of corporeal sense to a spiritual understanding of being.

In the Bible we read, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." ^{Gen. 1:27.} We learn in Christian Science that man is this image; he embodies the qualities and attributes of God, which include perception, integrity, justice, grace, mercy, love, discernment, and so on.

As we learn to live the fruits of Spirit, we are being man as he is revealed in divine Science. And to be this man is to be in the promised land. We have to live the qualities and attributes of God—not just think about them. We have to act. Science and Health states: "Through the wholesome chastisements of Love, we are helped onward in the march towards righteousness, peace, and purity, which are the landmarks of Science. Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause,—wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory." ^{Science and Health, p. 323.}

In the Biblical Exodus quite a long and difficult journey was involved. It was a journey that could have been made much more quickly. Had the people listened to Caleb and Joshua, and gone in and possessed the land of Canaan, they would have avoided many years of traveling through the wilderness. The people chose instead to believe the evil reports of the others whom Moses had sent to spy out the land. ^{See Num. 13:25–14:4 .} They were fearful and still not keeping God's commandments. They had been given these laws as definite rules of action for their daily lives, and they had to learn to obey the law and follow their leader before they were finally ready to enter the Promised Land.

An illustration of an exodus in present, everyday life might be as follows. Perhaps you have commenced to read Science and Health, the Christian Science textbook, for the first time. You are learning to leave old, material thinking. You are beginning to experience the new birth. Part of the definition of "wilderness" in the textbook's glossary is "the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." ^{Science and Health, p. 597.} Having taken up the study of Christian Science, you are experiencing today's exodus.

One way to avoid a wandering, confusing wilderness experience is to acknowledge that man is now God's image and likeness, His spiritual reflection. If, for example, you stand in front of a mirror, the mirror shows you reflected. Should someone put a covering over the mirror, the reflection of you would disappear even though you were still standing there. Now, God is always present, and any covering that might seem to hide man, His image, is but the Adam mist—the belief of life in matter. Christ, Truth, removes the mist, and behold, man, God's spiritual image, is intact as he always has been. Man, as reflection, expresses God's seeing and knowing.

Let me share an experience that I witnessed. A baby was born with an inflamed eye, and after six weeks of medical treatment the eye did not heal. The baby was then taken to a Christian Scientist. In prayer, the Scientist turned her own thought away from the bondage of mortal beliefs about eyes and matter. She accepted the good report of the truth that God made man in His image and likeness. She also obeyed the First Commandment, to have no other gods besides God. She realized that the I am who had led the Israelites to the Promised Land was the I am, or cause, or source of sight; this sight being wholly spiritual and not material. Mother and child then went home, and when the baby woke up the next morning, the eye that had been inflamed was as normal as the other.

God is always present, and His image, man, is always intact. It is only a lie about the truth that would appear to hide present perfection. Jesus said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." ^{John 8:32.}

As one learns about God, one learns what is true of man. Moment by moment, as this understanding is put into use, one experiences his own exodus. This exodus is a journey from "sense to Soul," to use the words of a hymn: