The key to happiness – A SATURDAY THOUGHT

Some do’s and don’ts for spiritual growth

Here are some things that would hinder our spiritual growth, according to Mary Baker Eddy’s writings:

• the habit of pleading with the divine Mind [God], as one pleads with a human being
• the belief in God as humanly circumscribed
• long prayers, superstition, and creeds
• whatever materialises worship
• “a zeal … not according to knowledge”
• selfishness and sensualism
• conversation about the body
• the expectation of perpetual pleasure or pain from the body
• clinging to a sense of personal joys
• intensely contemplating personality
• dishonesty

And here are some of the things they pinpoint that support and encourage our spiritual growth:

• patience, meekness, love, and good deeds
• silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience
• ridding ourselves of the belief that man is separated from God
• obeying only the divine Principle, Life and Love
• the practice of Christian Science Mind-healing

“When a hungry heart petitions the divine Father-Mother God for bread, it is not given a stone, — but more grace, obedience, and love. If this heart, humble and trustful, faithfully asks divine Love to feed it with the bread of heaven, health, holiness, it will be conformed to a fitness to receive the answer to its desire; then will flow into it the “river of His pleasure,” the tributary of divine Love, and great growth in Christian Science will follow, — even that joy which finds one’s own in another’s good.” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 127:11)

To look up any of these quotes in context, or to research other ideas in the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, use the search engine at Concord Express.