A Neighbor of mine had a vine with orchid-like blooms that she hoped would grow to cover her new lath arbor. The vine was carefully planted; its young shoots were twined in an upward direction from the arbor's base. But it sprouted several other shoots that began to grow away from the arbor. Though this hindered the vine's upward growth, my neighbor said she couldn't bring herself to prune them because she loved their beautiful flowers.

Some weeks later I noticed that the vine's growth on the arbor had almost come to a standstill, but the straying shoots had multiplied into a droopy tangle that clogged an adjacent walkway. Indulging a fondness for a few short-lived blossoms, my neighbor had consciously abandoned the pruning that would have brought her to her goal of a lovely vine-covered arbor.

The experience illustrates why we may seem to fail when we set spiritual goals for ourselves, goals that call for pruning away self-centered traits and nurturing conformity to more God-controlled living. The spiritual growth we greatly yearn for may be deflected from our grasp if we lose sight of the real purpose of such growth. It is not simply to make human existence more convenient or pleasant. The purpose of spiritual growth is to demonstrate that God is man's very Life, his divine Principle.

We need to understand practically that creation exists at the behest of and as the expression of God alone, as infinite Being. The Bible declares: "There is one body, and one Spirit, ... one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Eph. 4:4, 6). Surely this declaration speaks of the supremacy of God and of the lawful, perfect relationship that exists between Him and His spiritual creation, including man. This is the basis and framework for spiritual progress.

But when we attempt to base growth on a personal rather than a spiritual view of ourselves, we are likely to decide that there may be occasions when obedience to God's law is desirable or necessary and others when the demand can be postponed.

Some time ago I had an experience that helped me see that spiritual growth involves resisting the assertion that intelligence can exist without its governing divine Principle. This view of many ungoverned, or even ungovernable, mortal minds would defeat our sincere aspirations for spiritual attainment.

I found myself praying with a heavy heart to know why my earnest attempts to rein in ugly traits of temperament, like impatience and irritation, were meeting with failure. I was burdened with self-condemnation. The answer that came astounded me, especially since, as a Sunday School teacher, I regularly discuss the Ten Commandments from the Bible. The answer was "idolatry!"

Instead of having "no other gods" but the one true God— bowing down to and serving Him alone—I was breaking these first two commandments. I was making a god of a personal, material selfhood apart from God, called "me." This was the false god Adam and Eve chose in the Biblical allegory, which represents evil as a "subtil" serpent. In her book Unity of Good, Mary Baker Eddy has this to say of the serpent: "In the days of Eden, humanity was misled by a false personality,—a talking snake,—according to Biblical history. This pretender taught the opposite of Truth. This abortive ego, this fable of error, is laid bare in Christian Science" (p. 44).

As I thought about my own challenge, I recalled how the serpent entices the two mythologic characters to abandon their status as innocent and obedient children of God. The serpent promises them they will become gods themselves, "knowing good and evil." Apparently eager for independence from the Lord God and for the dubious pleasure of knowing both good and evil, these two succumb to evil's temptation. Knowledge of evil then quickly replaces their original innocence with such unbecoming characteristics as evasiveness and self-righteousness, foreboding, uneasiness, and guilt. And these traits appear to be expressed in minds separate from God, good.

I saw that, as with Adam and Eve, circumstances that confront us never truly place us in positions where we are unable to act rightly. We do make conscious choices. And I was making thoroughly self-indulgent ones every time I accepted disruptive emotions as my own, whether I gave vent to them or merely held them uncomfortably in thought. When I was tempted to react temperamentally, I needed humbly to acknowledge my spiritual identity and dominion as the reflection of divine Love. I did not need to allow arrogant, self-centered mortal mind, a belief in intelligence apart from God, to speak to and for me.

Mortal mind, calling itself "I" or "me," whispers words to this effect: "I really do want to subscribe to the beautiful concept of my God-given spiritual perfection and dominion. But this is not the right moment, since I wish, or even need, to indulge myself awhile in ...." (Here one can finish the sentence with whatever fits at the time: irritation, anger, frustration, impatience, self-righteous indignation—on and on.) Thus the "right moment" to yield to Christ, Truth, never seems to arrive.

Decisions deferring to the false god of "self," a supposedly intelligent mortal, put the one true God, man's divine Principle, "on hold." They would camouflage to human view man's spiritual perfection and abort his dominion over the passions. But spiritual perfection and dominion aren't simply appealing concepts. They truly do define man's only real identity—here and now. Man is the expression of his perfect and eternal Principle, the divine Mind. How foolish, then, to believe man could actually ignore his divine Principle by acting in this arbitrary manner. Such a mistake is mesmeric human belief, which Christ, Truth, dispels with the reality of man's spiritual individuality.

This uncovering was for me a giant step toward overcoming traits of bad temper that place barriers between ourselves and others. Such uncovering can open the door of thought to the self-examination and repentance necessary for healing.

In this work it's helpful to ponder the differentiation Christian Science makes between the apparent identity of mortals and the actual nature of man in his spiritual relationship to God. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Whatever is false or sinful can never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. There is but one Spirit. Man is never God, but spiritual man, made in God's likeness, reflects God. In this scientific reflection the Ego and the Father are inseparable."

A few paragraphs later Mrs. Eddy continues: "Nothing is real and eternal,—nothing is Spirit,—but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense" (pp. 70–71).

The urge to explode emotionally, or silently to nurse animosity or hurt, is nothing more than an enticement to give evil an identity. But this is something evil can never really have, because God, good, is all. And we can increasingly prove that wrong impulses are no part of genuine manhood and have no power over us. As we see that temperamental displays of egotism and self-love are temptations to turn away from God, we'll resist them. Our ability to overcome grows with a greater appreciation of the Science underlying the monotheistic demands of the Commandments. Implicit in man's undeviating spiritual perfection is the perfection of God as divine Principle, Love, whose laws support and control a completely harmonious creation.

As we recognize the truth of this deep within our hearts, we awaken to the kingdom of heaven within. This awakening effects in us a state of grace characterized by true meekness, one of the most pervasive qualities in the exemplary life of the Master, Christ Jesus. Instead of the turmoil that frustrates and divides people, this Christly meekness can bond us with others in mutual respect and tranquillity. It helps us stick to our divine Principle, making it possible for us to serve God more faithfully in all we think, say, and do.