15. 242
In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.
When I was new here, I equated self-love to someone who is narcissistic about their own physical beauty. Since then I have begun to realize it is also about those who admire their own thinking and opinions and desires and feel their way is best.
Adamant — from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
A very hard or impenetrable stone
Being so set in our own beliefs that we will not even hear the inspired Word, despite any plea to “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) reminds me now of Nabal’s refusal to meet David’s need and how “his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.” (I Samuel 25:37)
These following verses illustrate the warning signs of a hardening heart:
5. Zechariah 7
11 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.
12 Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone,
When Truth calls me close, do I refuse? When Love embraces me, do I pull away? When divine Mind speaks, are my thoughts so filled with mortal mind’s nonsense that I cannot hear? When I experience a Christian Science healing, do I act like it would have happened anyway and thus decide not to give gratitude? When God gives me a task to do or a need to meet, do I fail to be His expression and reflection? If I am getting like this, then I better feel the danger!
I am so grateful to learn here “If you believe in and practise wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right.” (S&H, p. 253) I thank God for Christian Science, this Church, and all that is offered here — including each week’s lesson — which progressively give us all we need to be what God made us to be. Thank you!