An inquirer was quizzing me about how Christian Scientists view the awful atrocities that occur in history over time. For instance, the millions Stalin murdered, or Hitler incinerated, or that civil war ravages in the heart of Africa.

I said that the material world can be a very evil place with gross injustices obtruded upon people. But I expect these evils to lessen over the centuries as humanity learns to love each other more.

My friend then wondered what kind of hope existed for the millions of people caught in the web of vicious hatred, greed, lust, and pursuit of power by evil minded rulers in the meantime.

I offered the model and life of Jesus Christ, as an example of the ultimate solution.

Jesus taught us to seek spiritual justice above all forms of human justice.

He suffered immensely at the hands of evil rulers. But his response was not political, legal, civil, economic or social. He appealed to the highest judge of all, God, for help, and walked away a survivor from the treacherous and murderous attacks he faced. He sought and found the ultimate justice of all—life in Spirit.

Any innocent victim of evil circumstances has a spiritual justice to protect them too that inevitably lifts them above the reach of their enemies. It takes humility to do this, because the initial desire of many is often to attack fire with fire. But the eye for an eye approach usually worsens suffering. It’s Love that dissolves hatred and Truth that triumphs over error with finality.

I remember a time when my dad had to appeal to divine justice to be spared from an evil situation on his farm.

He had developed a piece of dry-land into an irrigated farm in a new area that still had many dry-land farmers in surrounding territory. The agricultural practices of dry-land farmers can vary significantly from the practices of irrigated crop farmers.

After one year of successful farming, all his crops started to die. After intense research and inspection, it was determined that herbicide sprayed from neighboring farmers’ airplanes was drifting, often up to 15 miles, onto dad’s crops and killing them.

After lengthy discussion and debate, it was clear that no neighboring farmer was going to change their practices. There were laws against such practices, but enforcing the law was extremely difficult.

Dad decided he didn’t want to get embroiled into years of lawsuits that may prove futile and would definitely rack up huge lawyer bills.

He sought divine justice.

In divine justice, your help does not come from the legal system, from other people, or from anywhere in the world. It comes directly from God and in the form of inspiration, courage, confidence, trust and faith that all is well under the divine government. One’s goal is not to ignore the evil, but see through it, to the spiritual reality that perseveres forever.

In spiritual reality, dad could not have his good taken from him. True supply is spiritual coming from above, not from the earth, or from crops, nor could supply be taken from him by destructive habits of his neighbors.

He found his peace in spiritual truth.

Out of nowhere, a real estate agent appeared on the farm one day and asked dad if he’d ever considered planting apple trees on his land. He said no. She went on to explain how ideal his property was for fruit, and even offered to buy some of the acreage to plant her own orchard. Her offer was enough to get him out of crippling debt and save his operation.

The genius of planting apples was that apple trees were totally immune to all the pesticides drifting onto dad’s ranch.

Dad sold some land to the realtor, planted apple trees of his own, and in about three years, turned a dire situation around into a very prosperous farming operation. Since then stricter laws for spraying pesticides have been enforced and better practices adopted by neighboring farmers.

This story is not salve for innocents killed at the hands of murderous tyrants, but it does highlight how appealing to divine justice can be more effective than seeking human justice.

Eternal life in Spirit and supply from Mind is guaranteed to each child of God. No amount of evil in this world can deprive us of our gifts from above that are eternally ours.

We don’t always find justice here on earth for the evils we face, but spiritual foresight and understanding assures us that our divine reward is assured and gives us the confidence and hope we need to press on despite the difficulties we encounter. Our spiritual reward for patience and forgiveness is guaranteed.

Back to my opening remarks, because hatred in the world is often of gigantic proportions, a huge amount of love is needed to counteract it and prevent atrocities from happening in the first place. I feel certain this justice will be worked out over the centuries as the Christ takes greater hold in thought around the world and makes people more loving. Eventually the populace will be strong enough in Love that no evil ruler can get into office and rule arbitrarily over innocents.

I expect each of us is praying for that day to appear sooner rather than later!