Our Mission in the World Is Individual

We Must Be True to Ourselves

“Thou must be true thyself, if thou the truth would’st teach; Thy heart must overflow, if thou another’s heart would’st reach.” (Mis. 98:27) And Mrs. Eddy emphatically tells us that Truth must be written “first on the tablet of one’s own heart” (’02 2), in order to serve one’s self and, in this way, serve others. The past few years the Christian Scientists have prayed, and worked, and struggled to disperse the Truth of Christian Science throughout the world, but today we are praying and striving as never before to gain a rapid spiritual growth within ourselves. Why? Because today it is demanded of the Christian Scientist that he be so clear in his mentality, that he is able to translate every phase of human life into its reality, and give concrete proof of healing and salvation to a sick and war-torn world.

Prayer

Each Christian Science practitioner and student should be so filled with the spirit of service and love, that he can instantly answer the urgent calls for help. But such proofs can be given only by those individuals in Christian Science whose natures are transformed through prayer, righteous prayer, fervent prayer; prayer as understood in Christian Science, which is an “absolute faith that all things are possible to God.” (S&H 1:2) Mrs. Eddy speaks with emphasis about prayer. She says, “One thing I have greatly desired, and again earnestly request, namely, that Christian Scientists, here and elsewhere, pray daily for themselves; not verbally, nor on bended knee, but mentally, meekly, and importunately.” (My. 18:4-7; Mis. 127:7-11) Do we as individuals pray daily for ourselves? Not for someone else, nor for something else, but for ourself? Jesus is our example, and he spent hours in prayer.

Pray Mentally

First: Mrs. Eddy requests us to pray mentally. I wonder if we really understand how blessed we are, to be able to pray mentally. How blessed we are that our individual mind, through the enlightenment of Truth, can become that state of spiritual understanding wherein Christ or individual man is the only man.

Pray Meekly

Second: Mrs. Eddy requests us to pray with a spirit of meekness; that is, we are to pray, and realize, and understand with the sense of peace, and calmness, and sureness that David had when, without armor or sword, he slew Goliath. David spoke with a sense of meekness when he said, “Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name (meaning the character) of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied. The battle is the Lord’s.” (I Sam. 17:45, 47)

When we pray meekly, our state of mind is one of calmness, and sureness, and innocency; a state of pure consciousness wherein God’s reciprocal law of Being is in operation universally. Daniel, when in the lions’ den, understood this reciprocal law of Being. His mind was not dual. He did not believe that his mind was God’s presence and also believe there was a wicked king and ferocious beasts outside his mind. Daniel, because of his conscious oneness and completeness and perfection with divine Mind, knew that he included the king and the lions of God’s creation within himself. And Daniel knew that the king and the lions, because of their conscious oneness and completeness and perfection with divine Mind, included him within themselves. The king and the lions were in Daniel’s completeness and perfection, and Daniel made up something of the king’s and the lions’ completeness and perfection.

Daniel knew that God or Mind was verified in that very place as one and all. He knew that he and the king and the lions were reciprocal to each other, and each and all were governed by God’s reciprocal law of Being. It was Daniel’s sureness of this reciprocal law of infinite Good that dispelled the seeming evil in his individual consciousness, and in the consciousness of the king and the lions.

Pray Importunately

Third: Mrs. Eddy requests us to pray importunately; that is, insistently. When our need is very great, when we are sorely perplexed, when our whole heart and being yearn to be uplifted, then we are to pray importunately. Jesus prayed importunately when Lazarus came forth from the grave. To pray importunately does not mean to reach out or up desperately to some power outside our own self. To pray importunately is our own persistent and insistent effort to be that state of truth or understanding or realization that is the Christ, the real man that we already are.