Holy Expectation

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?

Think for a moment how wonderful even this present world would seem if, instead of all the evil expectancy which mortals now believe they may indulge in, they were to change their methods and expect only the good which God has for them! Think of the marvelous transformation even this single reform would effect in human thinking and living! In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 426) Mrs. Eddy writes, “When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress.” So to begin to recognize that God alone has power and that it is all good,—that good alone is in store for each child of God,—what a joy expectation would become, and how it would speed mortals’ progress from earth to heaven! When we stop to realize that to expect anything but good is to deny God, we are awakened to see that health and holiness, harmony and heaven, are the only expectations we have the right to entertain.

There is another aspect of expectation which we need to contemplate. In “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany” (p. 230) our beloved Leader tells us: “Scientific pathology illustrates the digestion of spiritual nutriment as both sweet and bitter,—sweet in expectancy and bitter in experience or during the senses’ assimilation thereof.” This shows us a necessity and a privilege: the necessity, that we do not lose sight of the fact that good must be assimilated through constant willingness to yield the false to the true; the privilege, to allow sweet expectancy to go with us through what to material sense may seem the bitterness of self-renunciation. Then our duty as well as our privilege is to cling constantly to holy expectation,—expectation of God’s continual blessing, expectation that all good and nothing less is what His dear love has and intends for every one of us as His dear children.

As we cling to such wonderful expectation, whatever may seem the way to its fulfillment, we shall find joy and peace and assurance going with us all the way, and naught but final victory can crown such a journey.