One morning several years ago my husband was ill with symptoms of flu and asked me to pray for him. I deeply wanted to see him well again and so I turned to God with my whole heart for the spiritual truths needed to quell my own anxiety as well as provide healing to him.
What took place in my consciousness that morning taught me a great deal about the power of God-directed prayer. As I prayed, I gained vital, fresh, and specific insights into the nature of divine reality as wholly good and was able to denounce with conviction the symptoms of illness pictured by the material senses. Soon I felt the metaphysical work was complete, and with gratitude started to go about my day's activities.
I sensed something more was needed, though, so I sat down again and quietly listened. It was immediately apparent to me that my sense of prayer itself needed bolstering. "Sure these truths are wonderfully inspiring and helpful and have some significance, but look what they're up against," mortal mind was saying. "How is the prayer that unfolded to your lone consciousness going to overcome a condition that is believed by millions to be real and to have a predictable course and duration?" Back in answer came these words of Mrs. Eddy's: "His substance outweighs the material world." (This sentence is part of a colloquy in which Mrs. Eddy includes questions that one might ask about a newborn child, although her answers pertain to the reappearing of the divine idea in this age. "How much does he weigh? His substance outweighs the material world," Miscellaneous Writings, p. 167. she writes.)
It was instantly clearer to me than it had ever been before that prayer—when it is under God's direction and impulse—is wonderfully substantial. Spiritual truths are bigger than the individual human consciousness to which they are appearing. They are from the Father, omnipotent Mind. And divine Mind's ideas as far outweigh collective mortal opinion as Mind itself outweighs a counterfeit material sense of intelligence called mortal mind.
This insight brought with it increased confidence in God's power to heal. And healing did come. Later that morning when I spoke with my husband again, he said he was completely well. An additional blessing was that I never "caught" this condition, nor did I suffer from any so-called contagious illness that entire winter.
I've recalled this experience many times, and it continues to instruct and encourage me. I sometimes ask myself, "How big is my concept of prayer? How much breadth and scope am I willing to admit for it?"
It stands to reason that as our view of God is enlarged, our view of Christian Science treatment is enlarged. We come to see more its true value and potential for healing—even its link with God's continuing revelation of divine Science.
Each Christian Science treatment is really part of a much larger picture; it's tied to the appearing in this age of the Comforter promised by Christ Jesus. This appearing is an ongoing development that didn't end with Mrs. Eddy's completion of Science and Health. The statement of Christian Science is of course complete in the textbook, and Mrs. Eddy's place as the Discoverer of this Science is established in history. Yet Science as the law of God, the divine Comforter, is now and always coming forth from the Father. It appears to the receptive, prayerful thought in the form of spiritual truths that heal; and it is leading on the ages, fulfilling God's plan of salvation for all His children.
I sometimes ask myself, "How big is my concept of prayer? How much breadth and scope am I willing to admit for it?"
With this wider perspective, we find that problems are not as apt to appear too big for our prayer, even if they involve community or world concerns. Nor are we as likely to be overcome by a feeling of personal responsibility for healing. We will sense more the all-encompassing aspect of the divine force behind inspiration. If we're willing to let it, this force will bear us forward spiritually. (We don't move God, after all; He moves us!) And we'll find we're no longer anxiously trying to make prayer "work" or to breathe life into it with ever greater human effort. We will have caught the vision that inspired prayer is, by its very nature, powerfully compelling and effective.
Christ Jesus taught that an inkling of the things of Spirit—"faith as a grain of mustard seed" he called it—includes enough of divine power to change the world around us, literally to move mountains. He himself moved mountains of sin, debilitating illness, lack, even death. The mighty power of God shone through his every thought and action, proving, as the Bible tells us, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16.
Of course, a key phrase here is "righteous man." There is a sort of reciprocal relationship between our lives and our prayers. As we live in accord with the precepts taught by the Master—expressing unselfish concern for others, for example—our thoughts are freer of materialism, and our prayers are imbued with divine inspiration. As our prayers are thus more inspired, they empower us to overcome materialism, fear, sensuality—to anchor our lives more in Spirit. In this way our lives enhance our prayers and our prayers enhance our lives.
The fact that prayer can become an increasingly powerful force for good in our lives has to do with who we really are as God's children. Spiritually speaking, we are not of this world. We are of God, "the Father of lights," as the Bible says. He has made us in His image and likeness, and so we reflect light, inspiration, understanding. This is the truth of our being, which we are destined to apprehend and prove. And this is the basis for a vital and progressive sense of prayerful rapport with divine Truth and Love.
Recognizing ourselves as children of God, with all that implies, reduces evil to its fundamental sizelessness. God naturally becomes more to us than the problem at hand, just as light is more than shadow and dispels it. Mortal history, worldly opinions, health laws, a medically diagnosed illness, have only the substance of mental suggestion; they are not the objective realities they appear to be. They can't withstand one glimpse of divine truth, because even this glimpse begins to break their spell, often bringing complete healing.
Rest assured, God is with you when you pray. Deep and heartfelt protests of truth, strong and oftentimes vehement denials of evil as real or causative—both of these are natural components of prayer and carry divine authority. But it is not our assertion of truth per se that heals. It is Truth itself, and the fact that Truth is true, that heals.
Even a minor instance of physical healing proves the nature of Truth as real and substantial and the nature of evil or error as unreal and insubstantial.
How big is our prayer? It's as big as the ideas it includes. If these ideas are of God, they are infinite, and their substance does indeed "outweigh the material world."
