As a Christian Science chaplain serving a juvenile hall, I felt the most important thing I could do for the young people I saw was to show them how to pray. What would I tell them? Mary Baker Eddy begins the chapter "Prayer" in Science and Health with this statement: "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." Science and Health, p. 1. To understand God in the light of what the Bible teaches is to know that He is good, that He is All, and that His creation is good—man is His perfect likeness. The prayer of spiritual understanding is indicated in Jesus' statement "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32.
But what more would I tell them about prayer? These words of Jesus' came to mind:
"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." Mark I 1:24. And when healing the man at the pool of Bethesda, the Master said, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." John 5:8. These passages suggest an active, not a passive, faith in God. As Science and Health states, "We must look where we would walk, and we must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being." Science and Health, p. 264. It also speaks of the need for "living consistently with our prayer." See Ibid., p. 9.
