Article May 12, 1980 Issue

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A petition to Principle

ROBERT C. PEACOCK

Newcomers to Christian Science soon realize that prayer can be more than the traditional plea to God for help. One approach, well illustrated in Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, includes affirmation of truth, divine reality, and denial of error, mortal unreality. Affirmation and denial uplift thought from claims of material sense to a spiritual sense of the allness and goodness of God and His spiritual creation. This type of prayer becomes increasingly natural to the Christian Scientist.

But this doesn't mean that the prayer of petition no longer has its place. Consider that greatest of all prayers, the Lord's Prayer provided by Christ Jesus. "Give us this day our daily bread . . . forgive us our debts ... lead us not into temptation . . . deliver us from evil"^{Matt. 6:11-13;} are all pleas to God based on a spiritual understanding of His allness. As our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, tells us, "We can do more for ourselves by humble fervent petitions, but the All-loving does not grant them simply on the ground of lip-service, for He already knows all."^{Science and Health, p. 2;}

How important it is, then, when petitioning our Father-Mother God, to do so desiring to bring ourselves into accord with what God already knows. We can always heal when the thoughts that produce ills are corrected—when we understand that perfect Principle continuously includes and expresses a perfect universe, including man, who is fully supplied, loved, and cared for.

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