Christ Jesus saw the kingdom of God in all its glory. One great reason for the success of his mission was his ability to behold creation as God made it—not as the physical senses interpret it. Luke records that while Jesus was praying, "the heaven was opened" (3:21). He had just been baptized by John the Baptist, and the account goes on to say that "a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased."

The purpose of prayer, as Christian Science explains, is to cause heaven to open so that one may perceive what God has done. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, discovered how to pray effectively by becoming conscious of individuals and all things in their true substance as God created them, spiritual and perfect. She writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 260), "Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but distrust of one's ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher results, often hampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure at the outset."

When the scientific Christian prays, he is not attempting to manipulate matter and arrange it according to willful, human desire. He is bending every effort "to discover what God has already done." The Scientist knows that regardless of what the physical senses present, God's kingdom is at hand, intact, perfect, and under His full control. The ability of the Scientist to see this kingdom will depend upon his purity and integrity of thought and his willingness to give up the materialism that would make him see otherwise than spiritually, or truly.

Once one realizes that God has already made man in His likeness, one stops trying to transfer a sense of good to another whom he is helping through Christian Science. He endeavors instead to discern the good that God is imparting to His idea. And he drops the tension and anxiety which often accompany a false sense of responsibility.

Jesus was able to see reality so perfectly that he could immediately demonstrate the presence of the divine government. The Master must have been explaining this method of prayer when he said (John 5:19), "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."

Distrust of one's ability to express divine power is overcome in the measure that one understands that power belongs to God and that He is already exerting that power to produce and maintain perfection. Man reflects divine power; and the Scientist repeats this true order of heaven when he demonstrates his real manhood, when he brings to light Father and son in their eternal relationship.

Our Leader says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 352): "There is not sufficient spiritual power in the human thought to heal the sick or the sinful. Through the divine energies alone one must either get out of himself and into God so far that his consciousness is the reflection of the divine, or he must, through argument and the human consciousness of both evil and good, overcome evil."

The former way is ideal for the practicing of Christian Science. The latter way is essential for every Scientist to follow while he grows spiritually to realize his true consciousness as God's reflection. One makes progress Spiritward when he silences the physical senses and quietly beholds what is going on in the realm of Spirit. There God's man is sinless and healthy, obedient and loving. There the will of God is acting changelessly as the law governing all being, creating, sustaining, combining, and blessing the divine ideas that comprise His kingdom.

The will of God is the power of good, which is omnipotence. One cannot measure power by his own slight expression of it, but must recognize the infinite might of Spirit, which is in full operation eternally. A vital point in healing work is the realization that nothing can resist the force of God's will. If anything seems to be resisting it, this is illusion; and illusion cannot persist when it is confronted with the truth.

In a case of illness, when one is endeavoring to heal a patient, one must open one's spiritual eyes to discern the power of God to preserve man in His image and to maintain his health forever. One must realize that no mortal belief acting as the patient's thinking or in the thought surrounding him can resist the will of the Father for that individual's present harmony. The true view, which appears to the Scientist, corrects the view which appears to the physical senses; and the illusion of illness disappears.

In every human problem, one must endeavor to see "what God has already done" and then let the divine concept master the illusion of the senses. Our full responsibility as Scientists is to see truly, scientifically, intelligently. The power to heal is the demonstrated action of Truth, which is going on perpetually. We come into harmony with that power, and our views of life are transformed. This will continue as we progress, until every concept that would reverse reality is proved unreal and "the possibility of achieving all good" is an accomplished fact.

Helen Wood Bauman