There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and sometimes it can feel daunting to know where to even begin my prayers. How can I pray for my family, my community, and the world when I feel like the challenges I need to deal with in my own life are enough?
Yet, I’ve realized that the ideas I pray with concerning a personal situation can be just as applicable to community or world issues. And vice versa—the healing, spiritual revelations I receive when I pray broadly can be applied to my personal life, too.
I’m praying to learn more about God, to see what God sees.
Why? Because what we learn through studying the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, is always true. Spiritual truths are just as true for “big” challenges as they are for what we might think of as “smaller,” or more personal, challenges. At the end of the day, I’m praying to learn more about God, to see what God sees, which is only goodness. Science and Health says, “Truth is God’s remedy for error of every kind. . .” (pp. 142–143). It doesn’t matter the size of the problem. Seeing this certainly takes some work, but I’m making progress.
A few years ago, while racing around the sand dunes in Northern Michigan, I lost an expensive smartwatch. I looked for the watch when I realized it was gone, but a storm came in, so I had to stop looking. I was frustrated at first, especially as I had been praying while I searched. Then I remembered a passage from the Bible that has always comforted me: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5, 6).
I felt reassured that I could keep trusting God, even after I returned home to California without my watch.
Around this same time, Southern California was experiencing raging wildfires. I was inspired to pray about this, and found the definition of wind from Science and Health very helpful. It reads in part: “Wind. That which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements of God’s spiritual government, encompassing all things. Destruction; anger; mortal passions” (p. 597).
There are two definitions here: the spiritual and the material. The first definition shows the true, spiritual concept, while the second shows the mistaken, mortal view.
I found comfort in the idea that God is in charge of all movement and that His spiritual government reigns. I saw this as meaning that God is always in control despite what the physical senses present. Nothing operates outside of God’s kingdom, and His kingdom consists only of good, spiritual qualities. Nothing is more powerful than God. When we understand these concepts, it’s normal to see greater harmony in our surroundings.
Prayer can bless all aspects of our lives; it isn’t limited or confined.
Although I was praying about the wildfires, I later realized that the same ideas about God’s spiritual government encompassing all things were true regarding my lost watch. As I better understood the spiritual definition of wind and God’s omnipotence, I came to see that wind does not control any situation, whether it be a storm at the sand dunes or the wildfires.
Soon, I felt peaceful. I trusted that God was protecting and caring for everyone impacted by the wildfires, and I was grateful for the protection that I and others felt during this time.
Then, one morning almost two months after I lost my watch, and during the time I’d been praying about the wildfires, I woke up to a text from someone who had found my watch at the sand dunes. He even went the extra mile to buy a compatible charger so he could find my contact information in the watch and reach out to me. I got my watch back soon after.
From this experience, I learned more about how prayer can bless all aspects of our lives. Prayer isn’t limited or confined. When we strive to be receptive to God’s messages, our prayers can contribute to healing even the most intractable situations.
