WHEN the problems of human existence—discordant relationships, food shortages, sin, disease, or death—seem difficult of solution, we may profitably consider the success achieved in their solution by those great Bible characters, Joseph and Christ Jesus.
Joseph's ability to provide for a nation in time of famine followed his overcoming of the temptations to sin and to cherish resentment and revenge toward his enemies. No doubt his purity, obedience to God, and willingness to forgive were as important to his demonstration of supply as were his foresight and executive talent. Pharaoh must have recognized this, since in choosing Joseph to be the governor and food administrator over Egypt he spoke of him as "a man in whom the Spirit of God is" (Gen. 41:38).
Christ Jesus amply fed the multitudes in a desert place when the available food supply was utterly inadequate. Thus he proved that the Christ-understanding was the Saviour from lack, as well as from sickness, sin, and discord. Christian Science elucidates this saving understanding as the recognition that infinite Spirit, divine Mind, is the real man's all-harmonious and all-supplying source. The saving Christ, Truth, neither waits on nor employs material methods of production, distribution, mediation, or medication, but meets all of mankind's needs directly and instantaneously through divine power.