At a Wednesday evening testimony meeting, when a long pause occurred before the testimonies began, the First Reader asked the congregation if anyone present remembered his first prayer, and if so, if he would be willing to share his experience. Helpful experiences were related with spontaneity and gratitude by those who in an hour of need had turned earnestly to God for the first time in prayer and had thereby proved the power of the divine law which operates to supply the human need. Let us also consider the potency of prayer.
To the Christian Scientist, prayer is often the joyous, confident affirmation of the ever-presence of a perfect creator and His perfect creation—the echo, as it were, of Truth's own declaration. We hear this declaration of Truth as we listen humbly. Then naturally, spontaneously, continuously, we affirm and reaffirm what Truth is declaring; and thus prayer becomes to us an everabiding consciousness of the presence and power and law of Mind.
Our work in Christian Science is to establish through prayer the consciousness of God's supremacy and His all-inclusive infinity, which denies the lie of materialism. Indeed, the sin of the material senses is the doubt of God's presence, power, and wisdom, the denial of His love and goodness and His tender care of His creation. The efficacy of prayer is proved by its ability to destroy these errors of sense and to replace them with a more spiritualized concept of God's omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. The understanding and practice of Christian Science bring assurance, confidence, vision, and peace. Having enthroned the consciousness of Love's abundant provision for His children, we clearly perceive that mortal mind's argument that good is lacking is but the delusion of the carnal mind and is not to be accepted.
