The Practicality of the Lord's Prayer

JOY DELL

The words "our Father" in the Lord's Prayer^{See Matt. 6:9-13;}—an experienced Christian Scientist once pointed out to me—imply that God, as loving, caring provider, is available to our humanhood as well as to our spiritual selfhood. This was not meant to indicate that God, Mind, produces matter—He could not—rather that God is approachable even from the standpoint of a human being.

Most Christians believe that God governs and controls the spiritual realm. Sometimes, however, harmony seems a long way from their present experience of limited, physical universe and vulnerable, material body. Yet Mrs. Eddy writes, "Immortal Mind, governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual."^{Science and Health, p. 427;} As we accept this insight, as we acknowledge that God, divine Mind, is supreme even in our so-called human living (so-called, because God, Spirit, really is All), we can confidently pray the words "our Father" and know that His care is operative in both our human sense of existence and the reality.

Does this mean that we would wish to perpetuate a material, false sense of ourselves indefinitely, apparently safe in the assurance that we could always petition for divine help? Certainly not, for Christ Jesus, who gave us the Lord's Prayer, also said, "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."^{Matt. 10:39;}

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