Article August 29, 2016 Issue

When praying, leave the answer to God

Keitha Walker

An important first step in asking God to help us in some manner is to be truly willing to take the issue to our Father-Mother God and then listen, rather than outline the desired result. God doesn’t take orders from man, a point Mary Baker Eddy makes in her definition of Mind (one of the seven synonyms she uses for God), which reads in part: “Deity, which outlines but is not outlined” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 591).

The foundational element of effective prayer is a deep and abiding faith in the allness and goodness of God, with no taint of outlining a specific outcome through human will. To surrender to God’s will, not our own, based on an acknowledgment that His wisdom and intentions for us are far superior to anything we could possibly know or want, allows for an unlimited and fulfilling outcome.

The desire for a particular material answer to prayer starts from a sense of lack. It doesn’t base prayer on the allness and goodness of an omnipresent and omnipotent God, the only cause and creator of the universe. Christ Jesus put it this way when he said: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? … for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:25, 32, 33).

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