Editorial September 9, 1922 Issue

Holy Expectation

Ella W. Hoag

Expectation has been defined as "a conviction which excludes doubt." Now, while mankind is always entertaining such convictions, the difficulty is they are generally based on so positive a belief in evil that the expectations held are only of disaster, failure, distress,—indeed, of all that would result from an evil cause; hence, the evil prophesying in which mortals so frequently indulge. Even the Christian who talks much of his faith in God would no doubt be astonished were his attention called to the vast number of times a day he throws the weight of both his thinking and his tongue on the side of evil expectation. Because of this evil prophesying, this expectation of that which is the opposite of good, is it strange that the world has seemed to reap the harvest of its own faith in and expectation of all that is disastrous and dreadful? "According to your faith be it unto you" should certainly be a trumpet call to examine the quality of one's faith, to see what it is based upon and what is the nature of its expectations.

When Christian Science first awakens one to the analysis of thought, it almost appears to such a one as though mortals never expect anything but evil, so continuous seems the endless stream of evil expectation which is poured, either from within or from without, into his consciousness. One reason for this is that the world's education has been largely from the standpoint of evil as a power. Believing in evil as power, the expectation of its activity, with results correspondingly unfortunate, would appear to follow naturally. Another reason that evil has been considered powerful has been the frequently accepted belief that God upheld it and therefore one never knew what to expect, since God was supposed not only to sanction and permit evil, but also often to will or intend it.

The psalmist must have had a very different viewpoint when he sang, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." He evidently did not expect the God on whom he was to wait would give him less than good as the result of such trust. So, in spite of the almost universal human tendency to expect evil, there have been those who caught at least a glimpse of the possibility of expecting and receiving good. Paul saw only positive good in the line of expectation when he wrote, "For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God,"—even the recognition and appearance of man's sonship with God. Christian Science, in its teaching of God as all-good, brings into view the possibility of never having aught but holy expectation. Since God, the infinite good, is the only Giver, where could there be any reason for the expectation of less than perfect good?

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