Do you know all you need to know about what's ahead of you? Sometimes! Other times we may feel that we know is woefully inadequate and that we simply don't have enough facts or foresight to cope with the future. Even some of the brightest and most capable people can miss the mark. Consider, for example, the chairman of IBM in 1943, who predicted "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Or an issue of Popular Mechanics in 1949 proclaiming "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

These two examples were highlighted in a sidebar to a recent magazine article dealing with some of the difficult challenges confronting people in the information age. According to Nobel prize winner Arno Penzias, who is quoted in the article: "We are the first generation in human history where knowledge will change more than once in a lifetime. In the past, with each new generation, knowledge was gained and torch was passed. What haven't figured out yet is what happens when your knowledge becomes obsolete at age 38" (see "Paved With Fool's Gold?" by Gayle M. B. Hanson, Insight, Sept. 25–Oct. 2, 1995).

Yet even if we can figure out how to cope with the rapid increase in information and the consequences that this is having in every aspect of human experience, we still will not have found the real security we need. It will never be fully satisfying to know only physical data and facts; and as the chairman of IBM discovered, the ever-changing future doesn't always lead where these "facts" would direct us.

What we need along with the hard facts and information is something deeper. We need meaning and substance. And most important, we need spiritual meaning and spiritual substance. According to one dictionary, knowledge can be defined not only as an "acquaintance with facts" but also as a "clear and certain perception of fact or truth." This dictionary also lists enlightenment as a synonym for knowledge. And standpoint of scientific Christianity, or the Science of Christ, it's really one the clear and certain perception of spiritual truth, or enlightened discernment of the nature of divine reality, that can liberate human thinking from the self-imposed limits of fear or ignorance. These limits would misinterpret the future and hold back both individual and social progress. But freed from ignorance of divine reality, our lives soar. They are given that spiritual meaning and substance so necessary to happiness, peace, and wholeness.

When Christ Jesus was preaching to the people of Judea nearly two thousand years ago, he showed them the way of future progress. His counsel is actually timeless and is equally vital in our own age of information. "If ye continue in my word," Jesus said, "then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31, 32).

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote a book that fully explains how this liberating knowledge, this clear perception, of spiritual truth operates according to defined rules and laws. And it is this spiritual truth that transforms human thinking, redeems from sin, heals sickness, and directs our lives safely and successfully into the future. The textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, makes clear the fundamental relation of God and man as divine Spirit and its spiritual reflection, as infinite Mind and its pure idea, as eternal Love and its perfect expression. This central fact of being, that our life is wholly in and of God, purely spiritual and never material, is unquestionably a revolutionary concept to the human mind. Yet that single, basic truth undergirds a perception of existence that is both intelligent and enlightened. It establishes the foundation for understanding our lives and the events and circumstances of human experience from a truly inspired standpoint. And it provides a basis for actually expressing dominion over those events and circumstances, so that our lives don't feel aimless or out of control.

As Science and Health affirms: "A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity" (p. 128).

With this genuine insight and spiritually grounded perception we will not fear the future or feel insecure in facing it. To know the truth of our relation to God, to gain "a knowledge of the Science of being," is to realize the genuine meaning of our lives as the expression of God. And in this knowledge we discover the substance of all good and of who we truly are as His reflection. This is the knowledge we most need for today—and tomorrow.

William E. Moody