The Answered Prayer

MARIA SCHLOZ

Our Master said: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do;" "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Here the Master opens unto us the very gates of heaven, making clear how we may lay down our burdens at the feet of divine Love. We have actually the promise that every prayer made in his name will be answered. To ask in his name means to pray as he prayed, and so to be able to work out our problems with his understanding of being.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 2), we read: "God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more?" God is unchangeable, without variableness in goodness or harmony. His eternal activity is compatible with the immutability of His being; for activity is the nature of Love, and it is always expressed in harmony. The presence of light excludes darkness. In the same way, discord is excluded from the presence of God. Hence God has no relationship whatsoever with so-called evil. Therefore His activity is seen in "every good gift and every perfect gift." As James said, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

God is all Life; God includes all cause and effect. Consequently "every good gift and every perfect gift" is the manifestation of God. Whatever appears to exist apart from good does not belong to God's activity or the realm of reality, but to the fictitious region of illusion. Jesus recognized the allness of God and the eternal immutability of perfection; and this recognition gave him power at the grave of Lazarus to realize the eternal nature of Life, to utter the command, "Lazarus, come forth." In order to be able to pray in his name we must learn how to participate in this spiritual understanding; and to remain true to this understanding of the allness of God, good, under all circumstances, means to believe.

This calls for watchfulness; and, like the wise virgins, we must watch until the "bridegroom" comes. No doubt must overshadow our confident expectation; for doubt darkens the vision and in consequence retards or prevents demonstration. Doubt never comes from possessing the Mind of Christ, but always from outside as a foreign substance, a lie. Doubt is denial of God, pulling down instead of building up. It must be met with the statement, I know you not. If we do not entertain thoughts of doubt but at once refuse them admission, our structure of faith will remain unimpaired and reach nearer the divine heights. This is the moment of healing.

In order to enter into this holy land, we must take off our shoes, on which there is so much of the dust of the earth,—so much transitory thinking,—and we must go forward with firm, confident steps. Our desires and endeavors must be turned towards heaven, holiness, in purity and honesty; for undoubting faith is possible only when the eye beholds in some measure the "beauty of holiness," and when, as Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 323), "boundless thought walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory."

It is a land of peace and blessedness, this land of faith based on spiritual understanding. Therefore, "lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your fee, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed." If we study earnestly and faithfully the words of our textbook, we draw from holy sources, from the "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." As we put into practice what we thus learn, our prayers will be those which are always answered.

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