Article March 20, 1971 Issue

The Answer Before the Call

MARY BARNES

In his Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus urged his followers, when they prayed, not to use needless repetitions such as the heathen did. He said, "Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."^{Matt. 6:8;} How comforting it is to realize that our Father-Mother God, who is infinitely loving, not only knows our needs but has supplied them before we make our appeal to Him.

Because His creation—a creation of spiritual ideas, not material things—is wholly good, eternally complete, and forever maintained by Him at the standpoint of perfection, there can never be a moment when good of any sort is actually lacking. The first verse of the second chapter of the book of Genesis states unequivocally that God's creative work was finished.

This does not mean that in the hour of human need it is improper to turn to divine Love to supply whatever seems to be lacking in our experience. On the contrary, it is natural and commendable for suffering humanity to do so, and the realization that every needful thing has, in reality, already been supplied by our heavenly Father invests our prayers with the certainty of the desired response.

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