Watching Point 282

282 — WATCH that you keep clearly in thought the difference between the desire and effort to eliminate the indications of wrong thinking and the wrong thinking itself. A desire to rid the earth of war is not scientific. The world needs to be purged of wrong thinking. When this is accomplished and mortal man has no war in his heart, he will express none.

The effects of wrong thinking loom up as being more serious than wrong thinking itself, just as the devastation caused by the explosion of a bomb seems more serious than when you regard the bomb before it has exploded. Part of the education and training of the student of metaphysics is to impress him with the seriousness of sin as cause—when it is permitted to go unhandled — in contrast with the effects of sin.

When the sea is calm and fishermen set out in rowboats, there seems to be nothing very serious about thus separating themselves from the mother ship; but when fog suddenly blows in and blots out the ship, they are left in small boats which are unsafe.

God is our Mother Ship and we must stay close to Her. Mortal mind as a belief of separation from God may not seem serious of itself, until the fog comes in. Yet the whole claim of separation from God is a dream; which, however, can never be dispelled as long as the student regards effect as more serious than cause. He must learn that he never need fear effect. As a matter of fact he need never fear cause, only enough to correct it. Fear of cause that leads to correction, might be called the fear of the Lord, which Mrs. Eddy once called a “wholesome idea.”