Editorial October 26, 1946 Issue

Are We Good Waiters?

John Randall Dunn

Why is it hard for some students of Christian Science to prove themselves good waiters? May not the difficulty lie in the failure to link the thought of waiting with expectancy? English dictionaries, as well as Hebrew and Greek lexicons, show the word "wait" to mean "to stay or rest in expectation." In the sixty-second Psalm, David sings, "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." In the Hebrew, wait carries also the thought of rest, and of quieting of self. The Christian Scientist, therefore, who should early learn that the unfolding and triumph of good are not problematical but scientifically certain, is without excuse if, in his search for deliverance from some error, he is turning out to be a fretful, disconsolate, or hopeless waiter.

In his school life, a child is taught the certainty of success in the solving of his problems if he adheres to the rules of arithmetic. Should not the scientific Christian, looking to God as changeless divine Principle, the source of every good and perfect gift, and striving for obedience to His law, prove to be a happy, courageous waiter, knowing, as the Scripture says (Luke 12:32), that it is the Father's good pleasure to give His children the kingdom? Should he not face each new dawn with the thought that here is a fresh opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of God's power over discordant materialism, and say with the Bard of Avon, "Now sits Expectation in the air"?

Certainly the underlying theme of all Holy Writ from Genesis to Revelation is the goodness, the justice, the all-conquering power of Spirit, good. The Apostle John in his first epistle likens the great First Cause to light, to which all darkness is forever alien. When one turns on the light, for instance, one is not confronted with an adversary endowed with power to resist, to fight back. Darkness never a thing, but the absence of something. So that which seems to be opposed to Spirit, namely, material sense, is not a presence, but an absence.

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