Remove misconceptions that hinder progress
A Christian Science perspective: Be free.
How often have we been held back from taking progressive steps because of misconceptions unaddressed and unconquered? Sometimes they are obvious. Sometimes they are lying undetected in the dark closet of thought. But one thing is for sure: When we remove these mistaken concepts that seem like major obstacles, a sense of freedom and progress follows.
We remove these mental misconceptions and limitations, which are based on a material sense of who and what we are, through understanding the spiritual truth about ourselves and the power of divine good, God. A higher and deeper understanding of what is true brings freedom to thought, which in turn brings freedom to our daily lives.
There are many obstacles that people face on a daily basis that stand in the way of progress and freedom. Fear of sickness, feeling restricted by old age, or a total lack of self-confidence often keeps people from finding health, freedom, and their God-given dominion.
Through prayer these seemingly unbreakable fetters yield when we understand something of God’s love and of His care for all His children. Christian Science brings out that God’s mandate for His creation is blessing, not cursing; that God is all good and created all good; and that each of us is made in God’s likeness, expressing God’s perfection and freedom. This spiritual understanding of what we are helps us overcome fears and doubts about ourselves and brings healing into our experience by giving us fresh, spiritual ideas that reveal the good that truly belongs to us.
When Christ Jesus entered a temple on one occasion, he noticed a man with a withered hand. Jesus’ spirituality freed the man from this incapacity – an obstacle that had kept him from full health and strength. The Master commanded him to have confidence in his divine capacity. He told the man to do something he believed he hadn’t been able to do before. “Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other” (see Matthew 12:10-13).
Christ Jesus possessed a spiritual understanding of the real nature of man as the perfect expression of Spirit and was able to remove what was hindering people from recognizing their true self-worth. The ability to detect and remove such obstacles to freedom, which are no more than material misconceptions, is based on a higher understanding of the divine facts of God’s goodness and our real status as God’s beloved child.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, discerned, through her inspired study of the Bible and her own experience in healing, the method Christ Jesus used to destroy those misconceptions that would keep mankind from experiencing their God-given freedom and health. He had spiritual insight into the reality of God as divine Truth and Love, and this understanding dissolved fears and other mistaken material beliefs. She writes: “The meek Nazarene’s steadfast and true knowledge of preexistence, of the nature and the inseparability of God and man, – made him mighty. Spiritual insight of Truth and Love antidotes and destroys the errors of flesh, and brings to light the true reflection: man as God’s image” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 189).
For freedom from the errors of flesh, for progress and healing, spiritual enlightenment is needed – enlightenment that comes through the Christ, the presence and power of God. Even understanding to some degree that God, divine Spirit, is the only creator and cause of our existence brings this spiritual enlightenment and the revelation of present spiritual good. The more familiar we become with divine goodness and reality, the more obvious our mistaken and unreal fears become, and the more easily we are able to remove them, so they no longer stand in the way of our God-given right to freedom and progress.