IN the sixth chapter of Judges, an account is given of the selection of Gideon to deliver the children of Israel from the Midianites. When the angel of God first approached him, the reaction of Gideon was to question why all these misfortunes had come to the Israelites. He said (verse 13), "Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?" Gideon then referred to past evidences of God's help to the children of Israel.
If an individual is faced with a similar temptation to ask why a misfortune seems to have come into his experience, it would be well to consider carefully the answer given to Gideon, "The Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?" In other words, Gideon was told to go forward in the confidence that comes from the recognition of the power of God and in the assurance of His continued presence.
When, like Gideon, we are tempted to ask the reason for error, or evil, we should rather devote our thought to the study of the power of God, to the understanding of God's creation, and to the acknowledgment of His presence rather than rehearsing mentally the reasons or conditions of evil that seem to be present. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 262): "We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God's creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We must reverse our feeble flutterings—our efforts to find life and truth in matter—and rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God."
