Article May 4, 1968 Issue

Right Desire

NANCY JANE DOTY

Christian Science teaches the coincidence of right desire and answered prayer. Mrs. Eddy tells us that "desire is prayer." Science and Health, p. 1; If our need is to experience healing, our prayers must course through the purifying stream of right desire. If our prayer, our desire, is unselfed, regardless of how long or how hard errors of sickness or sin have claimed to have a hold on us, we shall demonstrate our ability to side with God, Truth, and win.

We must examine our desires. The highest desire we can have is the pure desire just to glorify God. That was Christ Jesus' desire. That was Mrs. Eddy's desire. But we may not have reached the point in our experience where we can honestly say that we feel that way. The false concept of man as a material mortal rather than as the child, or expression of God, Spirit, may still loom large in our thought. What can we do then." We can pray that our own desires be purified enough that we may receive the healing effect of answered prayer.

A recognition of our own lack of right desire is a step in the right direction. In Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the publican, recorded in the eighteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, the publican's recognition of his need of purification was an honest position, and Mrs. Eddy tells us, "When the Publican's wail went out to the great heart of Love, it won his humble desire." p. 448;

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