107 — WATCH lest you permit a human estimate or attitude to blind you to the true and divine significance of your human experiences. This is an important point, since it is your attitude towards anything that determines how it will affect your progress. A postman who complains and grumbles about the long distances he has to walk, gets no benefit from the walking. But if he regards it as training for a marathon, he will rejoice in it, and thus profit by it.
A student might retreat to some quiet place in order to gain a sense of God's nearness, far removed from the upsetting contacts with the world, —but of what value would such a sense of good be? It would be so fragile, that the first human storm arising from contact with mortal mind would shatter it. How can we ever declare that none of these things move me, until we have proved it? Jesus says in Matt. 10:22, "He that shall endure to the end shall be saved." This ability to endure is gained only as we learn to maintain our spiritual thought under all human difficulties and problems; but what good will such difficulties do us, if, like the complaining postman, we grumble?
What would be the value of a consciousness of God, and an understanding of Christian Science, that had not been toughened and strengthened so that it could endure to the end? When one has the right attitude toward human persecution and affliction, he will never be ashamed of his problems, nor will he personalize the channels through which such experiences come to him. Rather will he rejoice at whatever plunges him into a hot or cold experience. He will perceive that it is Love's plan and Truth's way of training him to endure.
The most deadly thing, as far as spiritual growth is concerned, is the harmonious state of mortal belief, which sees no clouds on the horizon to mar the mesmerism, or to startle mortal man out of this mortal dream. Certainly a false peace, serenity or security in matter must be broken. Mortal man must be shaken out of his complacence. Otherwise he will never make an effort sufficient to throw off mortality, or to accomplish anything constructive along spiritual lines. Mrs. Eddy recognized the danger of this ease in error, and watched that the students in her home were stirred if necessary, so that there would be no opportunity for apathy. Unless one is progressing as he should under harmony, he should welcome whatever tends to keep him at the peak of spiritual endeavor, even if human sense rebels, and cries out to be let alone.
Click here to listen to the unabridged Watching Point:
To The Watchers
from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy, page 49
“Hear, O Israel, for the Lord, our God, is one God.”
You are not to come in your own name to pray.
You are not to control any mind.
You are to come only in the divine strength, and know that God will rule and does, and that hypnotism and evil minds cannot, and do not, control men or governments.
All power is God, good.
This is my only formula to Christian Scientists for prayer, and God will give you faith that will remove mountains.