Editorial August 11, 1962 Issue

Did I Really Pray?

Carl J. Welz

Christ Jesus assured us, "Every one that asketh receiveth" (Matt. 7:8). If we have not received an answer to our prayer, we may take courage. There is still more that we can do which we have not done. The way is still open for further prayer, and through this righteous prayer the answer will come.

Prayer as understood in Christian Science does not attempt to change God. God is perfect Mind. He is All-in-all. There is nothing outside Him, and in Him all is as perfect as He is. Man is God's image and likeness, His manifestation, that by which the perfection of God is reflected. In the infinite Mind and the real man there is nothing to be desired. We have human difficulties only because we believe ourselves to be outside God's realm of spiritual reality.

Our prayers, then, to be effective, must seek to lift our thought into the real. Prayer must bring a change in us. Such a change must be our aim in prayer. But our prayer is never for the purpose of getting God to change, and when we have prayed we do not wait for God to do something. He has already done all by being All and by creating man in His own image. When we find ourselves in need of something which man really has as God's reflection, we have work to do. That work is mental. It is the denial of selfhood apart from the spiritual the real, and the affirmation of selfhood which is spiritual, real.

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