Every day we make choices. Some are small and insignificant—like what tie to wear to the office or whether we'll do the shopping today or tomorrow. Other choices are larger—like the corporate decisions that affect thousands of employees or involve the expenditure of great sums of money.

There is one choice, however, that is infinitely more important than all others: the choice for spiritual truth. This choosing may seem to be a formidable task—even an impossible one at times. But choosing spiritual truth is vital. Why? Because our real being and existence are totally spiritual, and only the understanding of this can bring lasting happiness, peace, and fulfillment to our human experience. What we hold in thought is what determines our experience. So it is important that we hold thought to what is spiritually true.

Where do we start? With God, because God, good, is Truth—which is one of the synonyms Mrs. Eddy uses for Deity in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health. God and His guiding goodness, when chosen, harmonize our day-to-day lives and govern all our other choices and decisions.

Is the spiritual choice inevitable? Yes, because it is the outcome of God's allness. This fact of the allness of God, good, makes the spiritually mental demand on us to know nothing but good, to know ourselves as God's spiritual creation. Ultimately, we have no choice but to acknowledge this and choose His goodness as ours.

Everyone eventually hears God's loving demand: look for, choose, and adhere to only what is true spiritually. We may not be conscious of this call at times. We may not feel that it even exists. But it does. And the more we consciously make the right choice, the more we will see the effects in our lives.

But material belief—or the conviction that matter, the material universe, and the mortal senses are real—perpetually suggests to us that our choice should be material. False belief denies the allness of God, Spirit, and says that things and experience are totally material or at best a mixture of matter and Spirit. This may seem to be a good argument. All one has to do is look around at the strong pictures of lack, disease, immorality, war, and countless other situations that make good seem elusive or at best a chancy, hoped-for thing. But this argument of material belief is only animal magnetism, the term used in Christian Science to describe the false pull of material thought, which would attempt to draw human consciousness away from the truth, from God's spiritual good.

However, the comforting recognition that the true is spiritual good alone helps us turn from wrong beliefs and modes of material thinking, so as to eliminate the effects of animal magnetism. And "turn" is the right word here. We must turn and resist false mental suggestions—turn with resolve and accept the spiritual good that God is constantly imparting to consciousness.

How do we turn and make the spiritual choice in all our activities? By realizing, moment by moment and day by day, the clear separation or dividing line between what is true (God's realm, or what the Bible calls the kingdom of heaven) and what is false (the material sense of things). This clarifier is spiritual understanding, the divine illumination that separates the realm of God, divine Love and Truth, from evil and error—reality from unreality. Science and Health declares, "The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man." ^{Science and Health, p. 560.} Elsewhere in Science and Health we read, "Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose 'light shall we see light;' and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense." ^{Ibid., p. 510.}

Centuries ago when Christ Jesus was teaching and healing, he taught his followers to discern reality from unreality. In all that he said and did he stressed the importance of choosing spiritual good, and in his parables and stories he left many vivid examples of how to seek the kingdom of God, or heaven. ^{See Matt., chaps. 13, 18, 20, 22, 25 .} His parable about the tares and wheat teaches us to separate the real (good) from the unreal (evil) and discard the evil. And he likened the kingdom of heaven to a net cast into the sea that "gathered of every kind," the good of which was kept and the bad discarded.

When evil is separated from good and discarded, does Jesus' teaching leave evil as a factor in thought or life? Clearly not. The tares are burned; the bad fish are cast away. And in the simple story of the mustard seed that grew into a mighty tree, the Master urges us to cultivate the good and true alone—to let the kingdom of heaven develop in thought until it fills our entire consciousness.

These stories in Matthew encourage deep study and application of the lessons taught there: forbid entrance of evil, or error, into consciousness; never allow a retrograde or static moment; love and serve God, good, with every thought and action; and, finally, learn that choosing good is inevitable—that there is really no choice but good. At the end of his earthly career, the Master made the ultimate choice between good and evil when he chose life over death. This was his prime demonstration of God's love for all of us.

Years ago, as a newly class-taught student of Christian Science, I was eager over the possibilities of practicing the metaphysical truths of this Science powerfully presented in the classroom by my teacher. I saw their potential. I knew from many experiences that this religion was truly the Science of Christianity and that its teachings could meet every need with scientific precision. But my perception of the line of clarification between the real and the unreal was dim, and I wanted to make the right choices.

After months of prayer and study—of working with the Bible, especially Jesus' parables, and with the writings of Mrs. Eddy—I began to realize that spiritual understanding, the line of clarification that is perceived through right choices, becomes clearer to us as we put into practice spiritual truths. In a nutshell, we must choose good and live it, moment by moment. And right where we are in everyday life.

During my study one statement by Mrs. Eddy summed up for me what I was learning: "The pleasant sensations of human belief, of form and color, must be spiritualized, until we gain the glorified sense of substance as in the new heaven and earth, the harmony of body and Mind." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 86.}

As I studied this statement, it dawned on me that the way to express spiritual understanding is this: Test everything that comes into consciousness and then choose only those thoughts that are spiritually true. If a thought passes this test, retain it in consciousness and place it in the category labeled "the true." These true thoughts can then be cultivated and developed. This was a very real way to spiritualize increasingly all aspects of my experience.

It wasn't easy; it still isn't. But I found that I wasn't quite so overwhelmed by adverse experiences. I could more easily translate each one into a mental concept and then examine it for its value. And those concepts that didn't measure up I discarded. It was as if I had been given, in Christian Science, a great blade of light that enabled me to separate the God-derived real from what the material senses suggested. My "pleasant sensations of human belief" were becoming more and more spiritualized as I weighed every thought. This meant vigorous adherence to spiritual thinking on every question—great mental discipline at all times.

Out of this choosing came an increased confidence in my ability to know God and what was demanded of me in order to demonstrate my true identity as His creation. In addition to the incalculable benefit of an ever clearer realization of Truth, there resulted more self-confidence, a better sense of worth, an increased ability to bring Christian Science to others in a healing way, a change in career direction, more love and appreciation of church work, and much more good. It was almost like accruing interest in a bank account.

The kingdom of heaven—the real—became more and more my kingdom, the kingdom I could always choose. The only choice there was!