A parable is related in the eighteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel which is calculated to quicken the student's spiritual resolve and ensure healing through a more persistent application of the truth. Jesus tells of a judge in a certain city who was visited by a widow seeking to be avenged of her adversary. For a while the judge refused, but afterward, wearied by her continual coming, he yielded to her importunities. Reminding his listeners of God's infinitely loving and tender concern for His children, Jesus concludes (Luke 18:7, 8), "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily."
The Master's parable brings renewed hope and encouragement to the Christian Science student whose struggle with some hitherto unyielding problem seems to have been in vain. He, as did the insistent widow, can still realize the fulfillment of his prayer, and prove the value of continuity and persistence in the attainment of his healing. Had discouragement or despair turned this woman from her final visit to the judge, her request would have remained ungranted. What a little more persistence, a little more patient application of the truth, may do for us! Unlike the judge in the parable, God, divine Love, stands ever willing and ready to bless His children. Realizing this, can we tell how near we may be at this moment to a victory over error?
The writer knows a Christian Scientist who at one time was desperately in need of employment. Day after day, following his metaphysical work, he hopefully made the rounds of all the various employment agencies, but with no results. On one particular morning, after nearly a month of fruitless searching, he found himself standing on a street corner, tired and discouraged. There was one more agency on his list to visit, a new one, where he had not previously registered. Mortal mind suggested that he was weary, that this new agency would doubtless be just as disappointing as all the others, and that the smart thing for him to do was to give up and go home.
