Article August 27, 1938 Issue

Right Thinking Is Prayer

DELLA M. WHITNEY

EVERY earnest student of Christian Science is striving daily to bring greater good into his own experience and into that of others; and his daily study is done with this goal ever in view. He is convinced that through spiritual, right thinking, everything that is constructive and progressive may be attained. This conviction is substantiated by the understanding of the Biblical promise, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

We soon learn from our study of Christian Science that prayer is not the mere asking for some material thing; that the above promise is not a guarantee that we shall have that for which we ask if we merely try humanly to believe we shall receive it. Prayer is spiritual, right thinking. Prayer is the realization of the allness of God, ever-present good, and of man in His likeness, spiritual, inseparable from Him. As prayer is understood, it is seen to be a process of spiritual conviction that God, infinite good, fills all space, and that, therefore, any need which we may seem to have is primarily a need to understand more fully God's ever-present abundance and government, in order that, through spiritual right thinking, we may bring ourselves into harmony with God's perfect, beneficent laws. Mrs. Eddy makes this clear when she says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 4), "What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds." Thus the foregoing Biblical quotation represents a promise that is inseparable from its answer. Why? Because the understanding that God is good and fills all space, and that man, as His image, is inseparable from Him, brings absolute conviction that the good we desire is already ours.

One student who endeavors constantly to pray understandingly, "Thy will be done," also endeavors to realize that His will is already done, and that nothing can undo it.

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