To turn to God in a humble, heartfelt appeal reassures and uplifts us. To yearn to feel the love and warmth of ever-present divine Love blesses us. Christ Jesus said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Matt. 5:6. And so we are filled with righteousness as we fervently desire it.
Such total giving of ourselves to our Father-Mother God in importunate prayer is rewarded by divine Love, God Himself, comforting and meeting our need. How grateful we can be to Christian Science for showing us how we can trust God in this simple, direct, childlike manner. We never outgrow the beautiful, Soul-filled prayer of petition.
But Christian Science gives us so much more about prayer that we can learn and use. In order to advance in our understanding and demonstration of this Science, we learn to bring to our appeals to God an even deeper prayer of spiritual understanding and realization. In fact, the comforting prayer of petition prepares thought for the prayer of spiritual understanding, in which we seek to scale the heights of divine Mind by rejecting the material misconception of man called mortal man and acknowledging our true, already perfect, spiritual being, ever at one with God. It is at this point that we begin to recognize, even to realize, what we actually are: the spiritual reflection, emanation, or expression of God. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "Man is the expression of God's being." Science and Health, p. 470.
