The advantage of prayer

There is a way to find solutions to problems of every kind -- a way totally apart from intellectualizing or mere optimism. This method is prayer. While often considered an uncertain groping for a single thread of goodness in apparently hopeless situations, prayer actually is an effective resource for answers to the dilemmas we confront every day.

The greatest demonstrator of the power of prayer, Christ Jesus, gave the world what is known as the Lord's Prayer. It can be found in the Bible. n1 This prayer shows how we can devote our thought to the one God, infinite good. When we pray to God, problems that seem real and unsolvable lose their grip in the presence of His all-power. We can trust our lives to god, the creator of all.

n1 See Matthew 6:9-13;

The Bible records, "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." n2 Jesus brought this goodness to light in his healing of the sick, reforming of people's lives, even in the overcoming of death through the power of prayer. A nineteenth-century woman discovered that the power this master Christian demonstrated was not limited to his era. She found that she was able to align herself with God's great goodness, and in so doing was able to heal and regenerate people. Her name was Mary Baker Eddy. Eventually, she founded Christian Science. In 1879 she and a group of her students decided "to organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." n3

n2 Genesis 1:31;

n3 Manual of The Mother Church,m p. 17;

There is an entire chapter devoted to the subject of prayer in the Christian Science textbook. n4 At the end of this chapter, Mrs. Eddy gives what she felt to be the spiritual signification of the Lord's Prayer. Part of that prayer reads: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Enable us to know, -- as in heaven, som on earth, -- God is omnipotent,m supreme.m

Give us this day our daily bread; Give us grace for to-day; feed the fam ished affections."m n5

n4 See Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m pp. 1-17;

n5 ibid.,m p. 17;

This prayer indicates a state of thought that trusts wholly in God for solutions to problems; that acknowledges God's power in our affairs; that long for the divine grace to lift us to the awareness -- even more, the understanding -- of God's constant presence.

Mrs. Eddy writes, "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds." n6

n6 ibid.,m p. 1;

Why should we pray? Because through spiritual communion with God, our real Father and Mother, we glimpse something of our true nature: the pure idea of God that is always satisfied, always good.

Prayer doesn't always mean dropping everything and finding a quite place to think about God. "The habitual struggle to be always good is unceasing prayer," n7 Mrs. Eddy tells us.

n7 ibid.,m p. 4

The ability to pray can never be taken from us. It is our inestimable privilege that this resource is available to everyone at all times. We can depend on God because He loves us.

As we choose to honor God as the one infinite Love that does indeed have full charge of His universe, we will find our lives immeasurably blessed. DAILY BIBLE VERSE God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us. $ %Psalms 67:1