The opening stanza of that famous folk song by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays is familiar to many:

If I had a hammer

I’d hammer in the morning

I’d hammer in the evening

All over this land

I’d hammer out danger

I’d hammer out a warning

I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters

All over this land

They’re certainly stirring lyrics.  And the writers’ final stanza declaims that they indeed do have a hammer and are using it.

“OK”, you may be saying, “but what has that got to do with Christian Science?”

The answer is very simple.

We do have the hammer—the tool—that brings about freedom from all the ills that the flesh is heir to.  It’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  But to benefit by it, we have to pick it up—not just occasionally or for a sideways glance—and actually study and daily apply the truths contained in this life-changing, radical, and divinely inspired book.  Truths that heal.  Truths that reform.  Truths that regenerate.  Truths that liberate us.

Eddy stated:

Although this volume contains the complete Science of Mind-healing, never believe that you can absorb the whole meaning of the Science by a simple perusal of this book. The book needs to be studied, and the demonstration of the rules of scientific healing will plant you firmly on the spiritual groundwork of Christian Science. This proof lifts you high above the perishing fossils of theories already antiquated, and enables you to grasp the spiritual facts of being hitherto unattained and seemingly dim. (Science and Health, p. 147)

This is a clear, unambiguous statement about our responsibility to study and use those sacred ideas if we expect to bless, be blessed, and heal others.  There’s no wiggle room there.

Yet from time to time, I hear folks wistfully or wishfully claiming that if they only had some spiritual idea or truth that they feel keeps eluding them, everything would be fine—though these same individuals are rarely using the truths that are in the Christian Science textbook.  Often they’ve bought into the suggestion that they just don’t know enough—even though they’re not willing to make the effort to study and bring about the changes they claim they want.

Or they’ve accepted the lie that if they don’t know every detail of how the Science of Christianity actually heals a person of a physical problem, they can’t be healed.

Friends, this is like saying that in order to use a hammer to strike a nail—beyond understanding the basic principles of how to hold, aim, and use it—you first have to know the exact metallurgic composition of the hammer head and the nail, as well as the precise physics involved in accomplishing such a task!

Obviously, that’s absurd!

Likewise, excuses and fear in the guises of inadequacy or ignorance shouldn’t keep us from using the metaphysical truths that we already know or from being willing to dig deeper into the source to attain the desired understanding and healings that we want for ourselves and others.  Let’s just realize that we can’t be made to buy into this ruse of the carnal mind to keep us from using that hammer of healing—the one that puts the nail in the coffin of error.

On page 3 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy wrote:

Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution.

Instead of “if I had a hammer”, let’s pick up the one that we already have—and use it!