"DESIRE is prayer," writes Mary Baker Eddy on page 1 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." It gives one pause to note that no qualifying words are used in this simple statement. Since all constantly desire something, it is well constantly to examine the motives leading to our desires, that we may thereby learn the quality of our prayer. What do we ask for within the fastnesses of our own heart? For what are we striving? What great yearning is uppermost in thought? Are our desires, and therefore our prayers, material or spiritual? Do we ask for things supposed to give pleasure to the senses; or has our thought advanced to the higher desire for unselfed love?
The Scriptures define the prayer of wrong desire as follows: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." Mankind is yearning for happiness and peace. This is a righteous desire, entitled to fulfillment. The error that asks amiss is the belief that materiality, not Spirit, furnishes happiness. It is the breaking of the First Commandment that causes all the difficulty. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," is the dictum of God, infinite Mind; but a so-called fleshly, mortal sense would assert something far different, even that there is satisfaction outside of God, good! Jesus characterized this state of consciousness as a liar; hence, nothingness.
Everyone has his better moments, when desire yearns for that which matter or the senses cannot give, for the opportunity to know God. There never has lived an individual who could not hear, at least faintly, the call to higher aspirations. These moments are precious beyond human reckoning, for they indicate the awakening response to the call of Soul, the animus of conscience, which will not be denied.
