It was disappointing. I’d been assuming that the beautiful wildflowers that had been springing up in the meadow belonged there. But they turned out to actually be an invasive species. This bad news had come through a notice asking people to pull the plant up whenever they saw it.
It struck me that the notice could be applied to our thinking, too. Sometimes thoughts flit about that initially appear to be appealing, reasonable, even good. In the moment, it can feel reasonable to give in to a temptation to be selfish, uncaring, or sinful. But those thoughts are ultimately destructive.
A temptation seems reasonable only when we accept the false assumptions underlying it. So the trick is to watch what we’re assuming.
We’re constantly confronted with the claim that evil is present and that therefore good is absent. We assume we lack, for instance, love, right relationships, supply, health, happiness, or holiness. If we accept these beliefs, we can then be tempted to look to some material remedy to meet the supposed lack – an app for loneliness, a get-rich-quick scheme to fill seemingly empty pockets, maybe a pill to relieve ill health.
In the third chapter of the Bible’s book of Genesis, a talking serpent invited Eve to eat fruit from a forbidden tree. It did this by suggesting that the fruit would make Adam and Eve “as gods” by giving them knowledge of both good and evil. They never questioned the serpent’s false claims.
First, it was claiming that evil was a reality to be known. Since God created all reality, this meant God would have had to have created evil as well as good. Then, the serpent claimed, God made the knowledge of evil a prerequisite for Godlikeness. The serpent concluded that God hid this knowledge from Adam and Eve because He didn’t want them to be Godlike.
The first chapter of Genesis assures us that God made all things good and created His children in His image and likeness – that is, not as gods, but wholly Godlike. God did not, could not, create an invasive species in the form of a serpent to oppose or contradict Him. So the serpent itself must have represented Adam and Eve’s own underlying false assumption that there was something beyond God, good, and all that He made to know or to have.
When we’re confronted with temptation, are we questioning the assumptions that make up the temptation? Or are we agreeing with the claims that make the temptation sound good? If we find ourselves fighting temptation through willpower, it’s a sign that we have accepted the serpent’s claim that God’s good isn’t infinite, ever present, and already ours; that there’s something else outside of His creation that we need or want.
If a hardworking student is, despite diligent study and preparation, assuming she’s a fallible mortal who could flunk an important test without outside aid, the temptation to cheat might sound good. But if she recognizes that, in reality, she is spiritual, immortal, and reflects all of the intelligence and understanding of God, the one infinite Mind, cheating won’t even be a temptation. Similarly, someone who understands that, in the words of the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, “honesty is spiritual power” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 453) sees no reason to tell lies.
“Just change your assumptions!” doesn’t always feel easy to do. Fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. Christ, the divine manifestation of God, is always working with us to destroy false assumptions. Our job is to listen for Christ’s voice pointing out, not just wrong thoughts we may be indulging, but the assumptions underlying those thoughts. Once the underlying false beliefs have been rooted out and replaced with the true understanding of our forever unity with our Father-Mother God and of His forever care for us, temptations no longer sound reasonable.
“The kingdom of God is within you,” Christ Jesus insisted (Luke 17:21). We all have within us the innate understanding and consciousness of the reality and presence of God, Truth – of infinite good. Studying the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings develops and strengthens that consciousness.
And when we hold to the light of this understanding and see through false assumptions, those invasive mental species, or temptations, will no longer look good or beautiful. And we’ll see the reality of the health and holiness that are truly native to us filling our lives.
Adapted from an editorial published in the Nov. 11, 2024, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
