Editorial July 30, 1966 Issue

Is Prayer a Power?

Helen Wood Bauman

Can we say that prayer is a power? Can we rely upon prayer to overcome sickness and evil and to govern our lives rightly? The answer is Yes, when prayer is used correctly and entered into with true humility. The spirit in which we approach God in prayer has much to do with its success. The author of Hebrews said, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."^{Hebr. 11:6;} Expectancy is an important element in the prayer that is power.

Christian Science stresses the prayer of affirmation, but it does not limit anyone to this kind of communion with God. Desire plays its part in the prayer that is power; so does petition; so does praise; so does motive. Whatever touches God in humility reflects His divine might.

Christ Jesus used prayer as a power to heal disease and moral weakness and even to raise the dead. He communed with God while others slept. His prayers came consciously into conflict with the wicked forces of the carnal, or mortal, mind, which produces wrong conditions. His prayers were not passive pleadings for mercy but were vigorous realizations of the Father's ceaseless love, which stops the mesmeric mental action of evil and destroys its delusions. The people the Master prayed for awakened in a measure from the dullness of an earthly sense of mind to the brightness of the divine Mind that man in God's image reflects; and their troubles vanished.

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