Article November 28, 1988 Issue

Helping humanity

The Christian Science Monitor

In a world where innocent people too often suffer at the hands of cruelty and injustice, it may sometimes seem that prayer isn't of much practical help. Yet the Biblical promise "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much"^{James 5:16.} shouldn't be brushed aside. Prayer is vitally important, because prayer involves turning to our creator for help, and there simply isn't a greater power.

Because we can't physically see God, we may be inclined to think He is an abstraction, of little help in the face of war, starvation, homelessness, hostage-taking. Actually, nothing but divine power can impel solutions to such challenges. It's precisely because God is omnipresent, almighty Spirit, unseen by material eyes, that our prayers to Him can have an impact on even the most complex troubles around the globe.

"That all sounds fine," we may think, "but the fact remains that people are suffering, often through no fault of their own. Where is God? Why doesn't He help?" This is an understandable feeling, and it can seem pretty acute the more deeply we care about mankind. In a sense, though, the question "Why doesn't He help?" implies that God is less than God; that for some reason He allows all this evil—or even wills it—and is unable or unwilling to help. But God is never less than supreme Spirit, universal Love, as we can learn from the Bible and as Christ Jesus proved so powerfully. God causes good alone. Suffering is not a product of God but of what St. Paul termed "the carnal mind," which is "enmity against God."^{Rom. 8:7.} It's a product of materialistic thinking, of the general conviction that life exists separate from God, subject to forces beyond our control.