Our Patient God

Ella W. Hoag

"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." Thus writes our God-inspired Leader, Mrs. Eddy, on page 242 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Paul also speaks of our heavenly Father as "the God of patience and consolation;" and then the apostle goes on to pray that He may "grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God." And what divine patience is needed that we may fulfill these demands!

Mankind has imagined that it has understood something of patience, and that it has expressed this quality frequently and in a praiseworthy manner. As Christian Scientists awake to the work to be performed by every individual that "the adamant of error" may be dissolved; as they see more and more clearly something of what it means to effect this dissolution through understanding and reflecting "the universal solvent of Love," they realize that no ordinary sense of patience can fit them for their work; instead, they must possess patience of the very highest order.

We may not always have seen that it is only our patient God who can bring forth in us that spiritual understanding of patience which will render us equal to the overcoming of all evil. In "Christian Healing" (p. 19) Mrs. Eddy has also written, "Tireless Being, patient of man's procrastination, affords him fresh opportunities every hour; but if Science makes a more spiritual demand, bidding man go up higher, he is impatient perhaps, or doubts the feasibility of the demand."

Right here is where the Christian Scientist must be most alert. We are quite willing to be patient—up to a certain point! We work steadfastly and are, we feel, commendably persistent in our efforts to demonstrate over the claims of sin and disease so long as our demonstrations are progressing in ways that seem to us satisfactory and plainly visible. We may think, and sometimes rightly, that it often takes a large and fine degree of patience to keep at a problem until it is solved when its solution seems to come more or less slowly.

But what about the demonstration which appears beset by difficulty after difficulty? What about the patience that commences to flag when discouragement assails and errors loom large and alarmingly? Are we then quick to remember our patient God? Do we recall that "tireless Being" is even then affording us "fresh opportunities every hour"? Do we realize that right then and there God is bidding us to "go up higher"? If under stress we swerve from the unflinching purpose to labor to dissolve with divine Love "the adamant of error," such faithlessness will but make the way more toilsome. Every problem must finally be solved with Truth; each evil belief must be proved unreal through using the perfect divine solvent of Love both patiently and tirelessly. And if we will but perform our labor with joy! If we will but constantly rejoice in the fact that, if we persevere, patience cannot fail to have her perfect work, revealing in us that perfection which is "entire, wanting nothing"!

And we need always to have patience with ourselves. The task of dissolving one's own association with "the law of sin and death" is the problem each one must solve. Each must overcome self-will, self-justification, self-love with the one and only solvent. Human belief rises in arrogant rebellion against this necessity, and without Christian Science one might easily falter and fail in the attempt. But with our blessed Comforter—Divine Science—we have but to learn patience from our patient God, in order to prove that the path is one of continued happiness and victory. If we will accept the illuminating statements of our Leader herein quoted as presenting the way of salvation, we may demonstrate day by day, hour by hour, yes, even moment by moment, the glorious fact that the patient effort to dissolve with divine Love the selfishness of human belief is indeed the most satisfying of occupations.

If we have learned to exercise patience in the midst of our own faults and failures; if we have learned to cling unswervingly to our patient God until we reflect the necessary patience to complete every demonstration which God demands of us—then we shall find it very easy to be patient when our brother may be blinded by follies and mistakes. Our beloved Leader sums up most simply and inspiringly everyone's necessity when she writes in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 268), "Through patience we must possess the sense of Truth; and Truth is used to waiting"!

Ella W. Hoag

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Notes from the Publishing House

February 25, 1928

Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit