Are you leading a progressive life? Can you think of a new and improved perspective or idea that you learned and put into practice at the end of each day?
Mary Baker Eddy makes this thought-provoking observation, “Mortals move onward towards good or evil as time glides on. If mortals are not progressive, past failures will be repeated until all wrong work is effaced or rectified” Science and Health, p. 240.
Too often, the human mind believes that life will get better with the passing of time or by chance. And it mentally sits around and waits for conditions to improve, repeating the same thought patterns as the past and experiencing the same unhappy results.
To progress, thought has to advance to a better place. As Einstein is famously paraphrased, “You can’t keep thinking the same thoughts and expect different results. It’s a definition of insanity.”
Mental idleness, complacency, and contentment with the past do not lead to progressive thinking and living. They lead to decline and death.
The happier way to live is to demand progress. Be eager to stretch thought to new places, to take in new expansive views of spiritual reality that open your eyes to the grand good of God all around to witness, experience and express. Don’t be satisfied with the way things were yesterday.
Life is good. Life is wonderful. Life is fun. Any condition of mortality that denies the goodness of God here and now is a lie. But a lie has to be unbelieved and replaced with truth to be disarmed and neutralized from having a bad effect. This is where we must be up and doing.
Consecrated prayer, keen mental watching, and a hungry desire to grow in spiritual understanding keep our thinking alert and awake to the presence of Christ, Truth, that enables us to see through the lies of mortal mind and conquer them with spiritual truth. That’s when healing happens. And that’s called progress!
Eddy also wrote, “We all must learn that Life is God. Ask yourself: Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good? Am I demonstrating the healing power of Truth and Love? If so, then the way will grow brighter ‘unto the perfect day.’” Here is a prescription for progress. Live the life that “approaches the supreme good.” Embrace God with all your heart, accept your worthiness for the best God has to offer, and demonstrate it as a here and now fact of your life.
When the supreme good is your goal, you will not be content with anything less.
Thank you Evan. This posting of yours today is packed with so many good ideas. I’ve read it three times and noticed a new idea each time!
Over the weekend I was reading an article that pointed out that when people are first introduced to Christian Science (C.S.), the reason they are often interested is because they want/need something. Often times that need is a healing of some sort. In other words, those new to C.S. are often wanting “better matter” or “a better material situation”.
After you study C.S. for a while you start to understand more about God and learn that God is Spirit and therefore God’s creation is entirely spiritual. However, even after learning this you may still cling to wanting to use C.S. to get better matter. But at some point in your study of C.S. it becomes necessary to progress and to change your focus from “getting better matter” to “realizing the harmonious spiritual creation…God’s idea”. That doesn’t mean your needs won’t be met humanly…they will be. It just means that your “focus” will no longer be on how supply is represented humanly (be that money, health, companionship, etc.) , but that you will start to realize spiritual ideas as true substance.
One way I have progressed recently in doing this is by focusing on the following line from the Lord’s Prayer:
Hallowed be Thy name
and the spiritual interpretation given by Mary Baker Eddy
Adorable One
I was raised in C.S. and heard these lines read during Church services or read them myself many many times. But only recently have these lines become precious to me. I recently asked myself “Do I really adore God?” I had to admit I had room to progress in my adoration of God and His idea. So recently I’ve started really loving God in my prayers and being so grateful for all of the goodness, love, truth, etc. that God manifests. That method of praying has opened up an entirely different view of substance as completely spiritual. And that’s a glorious viewpoint from which to base my every moment!
Outstanding reply Brian made many things clear to me Your answer along with Evan’s changed my daily focus on to the things that really matter
Wow ~ This shines a whole new perspective on things, Brian (and Evan). Thank you! It is true, we often do seem to want to be ‘comfortable’ in matter, rather than understanding our spiritual creation and ascending into a more harmonious realization of our true being. A lot of good thoughts here to ponder. Thank you again
Great reply Brian and very insightful. You point out here that we always need to extrapolate more from everything we read…go one step further or else we are simply reading the same words over and over and thinking the same original thoughts (not saying thse thoughts are bad ) but we DO need to continually re assess and see what we know in relation to other ideas. I have been thinking about that line in the Lord’s Prayer too (and MBE’s interpretation).
How do you “adore” a spiritual idea when we tend to associate adoring with something physically “adorable”, cute, lovely? I think by using this word “adore” MBE is reminding us to understand the real meaning of words , to not materialize the spiritual and to not limit our perception of reality to the merely physical.
What you have said also reminds me that our spiritual success or failure must not be measured in physical terms such as feeling like a failure when we or a “really good Christian Scientist didn’t get their healing” ie FIX THE PHYSICAL PROBLEM.
No we cannot define our progress in purely physical terms.
Is “the prize of Life” to remain here for many many years? OR is it to progress SPIRITUALLY beyond needing to be here?
Thankyou again for helping me progress today brian! 😉
I love the ideas in this article! So much positivity! As you say, it’s sometimes very easy to be complacent about things, thinking the same thoughts and wondering why we’re not being healed. I know I’ve been guilty of that. But doesn’t the Bible say “Sing unto the Lord a new song” so today for me is going to be ‘Positivity Day’ and I shall refuse to be negative or complacent and of course ‘Progress is the law of God’. Thanks Evan. You always come up with something great!
Thanks to everyone for their comments especially Brian. Loving God is a wonderful warm feeling. He delights in his perfect loveable creations. So grateful for your blog Evan and all that share.
This life, my life,
the life I have
been calling
my own, is
actually God’s Life.
I have been living
God’s life all along,
and mistakenly
called it mine,
simple mistake,
with huge implications
God living thru this
reflection, every reflection,
must of course
live this Life with
all the attributes
of God, expressed.
There is no way out
We are all in
One Life, God.
Therefore, this is
the divine Goodness,
in infinite supply,
of which is the
only possible reality,
One God
One Life
One Truth
One Mind
One Love
One Reality here now
Thanks Maximo! Your poems always inspire me to think deeply about the subject on which you’re writing. You have wonderful talent as a poet!
So lovely and true and inspiring dear Maximo 🙂
And furthermore I fully tune in what Brian commented.
Thank you for your spiritually deep going poem.
Awesome!!!
Proof of Truth, this site!
MATTER surely could not produce such
wise and loving ideas!!!
;-))
Yeeees. The habitual struggle to be always is unceas ing prayer…..The longing to be better and holier, expressed un daily watchfulness and un striving to assimilate more of The Divine carácter, wild mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likennes. Science and Healt MBE
The slogan is: HABITUAL STRUGGLE, DAILY WATCHFULNESS AND IN STRIVING…. At The end of The day I might soy like Timoty ” I have tought The good fight” Thank you and Blessings to all
Gustavo, Argentina
Wonderful Truth here. I am so grateful to God and to each one who shares here. Blessings to you all.
Thank you Brian and Evan. I am reminded about an impressive healing I had of severe tooth pain when Hymn 356 came to thought and all the reasons we can and do adore God: To Thee, O God, we bring our adoration, To Love divine, in whom we live and move; For Thou hast shown to us our perfect selfhood In Thy loved Son, whom Jesus came to prove.
I wrote on my toolbox as a young man a quote from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Keys to the Scriptures 296:4; “Progress is born of experience.” along with this I saw this quote within the over arching concept 258:13 “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists in the infinitude of Truth. We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God.” Whenever I get stuck in the mud of human experience, I know that I can rely on this idea to guide me forward out of whatever entrapment I have created for myself. The infinite Mind cannot be limited in any dimension.
Love your poem Maximo – will keep it!
Thanks, Evan, and all who have commented, especially Brian. I continually keep in mind the ending words of verse 3 in Hymn 224, “Henceforth my great concern shall be To love and praise Thee more.”
This is my greatest concern regardless of whatever I may be facing.
WOW!! Thank you Evan, Brian, and Josef, in particular for today’s inspiration. Maximo, I too love your inspiring poems. I agree with Grace and SpiritView Fan: “Awesome!!! Proof of Truth, this site! MATTER surely could not produce such wise and loving ideas!!!
Yes, Evan, we shall demand progress in understanding God and His idea better and better.
And yes, we will progress, because as Linda already mentioned in part and what MBEddy says in her healing textbook (the whole passage is relevant to today`s SpiritView): “Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power. These proofs consist solely in the destruction of sind, sickness and death by the power of Spirit, as Jesus destroyed them. This is an element of progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil.” (page 233 in S&H) I love this, because it demands of us not more than we can fulfil – and this even with Gods help.
thank you, dear Evan, for this challanging and loving and valuable lesson.
Thank all commenters for their interesting, lovely and inspiring ideas to this theme 🙂
Thank you for this rich and inspiring blog and for much enlightenment in the comments.
I feel I’m progressing today.
Thanks. Just perfect for me today.
Amen ❤️
Thanks Evan. This is perfect for me today. I love this!
Thank you Evan, for yet another great thought that has set my thoughts on a more progressive path. Feeling so angry about something that I hardly slept last night, I knew God would send me the thoughts I needed to go forward PAST that feeling and reading this has done it.
Sometimes we find ourselves surrounded with people who are intent on keeping things as they always have been, who seem to lack vision, imagination or any desire for progress but as you made me realise, by allowing ourselves to become annoyed about this we are actually holding back our own progress too! God’s IMMORTAL beings are created UNABLE to be backward thinking , in fact created as a PART OF God’s law or progress!
Thank you Diane for your inspired and inspiring comment 🙂
Love it. Well said! Constant and never ending improvement. It gives meaning to living. It blesses others besides oneself. Everyone should do this and students of Christian Science more than anyone.