Article December 3, 1938 Issue

The Glory of Overcoming

IN I Kings we read of an experience which befell Elijah, "the man of God," while he was endeavoring to turn the Israelites from the worship of Baal. Because of his radical warfare against the prophets of this false deity, Elijah incurred the enmity of Jezebel, and was forced to flee into the wilderness to escape her vengeance. We are told that he had gone but a short distance when, evidently overcome by discouragement and fear, he "sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die."

The Biblical account relates that as the prophet slept an angel came to him, arousing him to behold food and drink already laid before him. After partaking of this fare, he again lay down under the tree, and was again roused by the angelic command to "arise and eat." Obeying the second time, Elijah was sufficiently strengthened to start his journey out of the wilderness, and although he had gone but a day's march when discouragement overtook him, he was now able to travel "in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God," where he lodged in a cave to await God's further commands. Elijah continued to labor for the good of Israel. And later it is recorded that his final departure from mortal sight was so glorious that it appeared to his companion, Elisha, to be accompanied by horses and chariots of fire.

Spiritually interpreted, is not Elijah's experience in the wilderness often paralleled in one's own experience? When beset by some severe trial, is not one prone to yield temporarily to hopelessness and inertia? There may even come to a sufferer at such a time, as there apparently did to the prophet, the suggestion that death, oblivion, would be preferable to the struggle to resist and overcome the formidable error with which he seems to be afflicted. However, even if one understands but little of Christian Science, he knows that death is an enemy, not a friend. And he realizes, too, that death can never solve one's problems, for he is cognizant of the Scriptural teaching, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," and of the words of Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 291), where she has written, "As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be after death, until probation and growth shall effect the needed change." When faced with a severe problem, the student can understand that since each must eventually overcome all the claims of evil that appear to him, he may as well start this work and confidently carry it on in the present moment.

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