AN assured expectation of good at all times and under all circumstances is something for which the human heart has ever yearned. This is what is meant by confidence in God. To face the ofttimes relentless monotony, the seeming failure and hardship, the sin and suffering of human experience, and to know that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, nothing can be developed in experience but good, is to maintain what Mrs. Eddy calls "fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 397).
Such trust was undoubtedly the conscious power which lay behind those remarkable words of Christ Jesus as he encouraged his followers: "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." These are challenging words; they express an assured expectation of good, an absolute and utter confidence in God.
Again and again throughout his three years' mission, Jesus proved that he was not like the scribes, for he spoke "as one having authority." More than once he faced the seeming hopelessness of belief in death, and with words of simple command caused it to be instantaneously reversed. The manifestation of evil was destroyed, and good was made apparent. For centuries, Christians the world over have read and spoken of these great things. The Scriptural record of these manifestations of divine power, of the ever-presence of good, has never been proved untrue.
