THE unnecessary labor, disappointment, unhappiness, and woe of the human race will cease when the aspirations and deeds of men are based on an understanding of the power of the divine Mind, God, to instill right desires in the human heart.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 1), "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."
True prayer, then, is serene and humble desire to know God, good, aright, to abide in His love, to live in obedience to His unerring and beneficent intelligence, to accept Spirit alone as substance, to find all cause and effect in Mind; in short, to "have no other gods" before the one God. To acquire and maintain even a modicum of the consciousness which is true prayer requires constant watchfulness and persistent effort to let Spirit mold one's desires, in conformity with the pattern of the divine. A thought that does not spring from a deep desire to express some quality of God is not true thought, and must be excluded. John says, "Try the spirits whether they are of God." This requires patience and a genuine willingness to discard all aims, desires, and ambitions based on personal sense. Spiritual perfection is the model. Spirit is the molder.
