Article March 14, 1994 Issue

Yes, we can help

Much seems to lobby on the side of prejudice and distrust. Are we helpless? No! Prayer can open a way to peace.

Anne-Françoise Bouffé

Progress toward the promise of greater cooperation among people and nations often seems to founder before fear of competition, distrust, prejudice. Even many who support efforts toward greater unity may feel powerless to influence the furture of cooperation among neighbors or nations. Yet Christian Science reveals that we don't have to submit to this feeling of an inability to bring about good. The Bible shows so clearly how humble, pure, loving, and spiritual thinking and acting have been instrumental in speeding humanity's progress in useful directions. The Old and the New Testaments contain many examples of personal and collective challenges resolved through prayer, through quiet listening to God, through understanding that God, infinite good, is in full control of the smallest detail of the universe and is always sufficient for all things.

The lives of the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and above all Christ Jesus, clearly show that when we recognize God as all-powerful and man as never separate from Him, we are able to act in conformity with the highest good and so can help bless our neighbor and many others as well. Joseph, for instance, knowing that God was always with him, was able to avert a catastrophe and find efficacious solutions to a famine in Egypt (see Gen., chaps. 41 to 45). Moses, by learning to listen to God and by understanding God to be the source of his thoughts, words, and actions, liberated the people of Israel from slavery (see Ex., chaps. 3 and 4). Jesus, conscious of man's oneness with God and filled with gratitude to Him, proved the powerlessness of sin, disease, and death. He knew that all that the Father has belongs to man, God's likeness. Thus he could multiply a few loaves and fishes to feed five thousand people in the wilderness (see John 6:5-13).

But, we may ask, can the Bible really provide us up-to-date answers about how prayer can help to heal divisions and strife among peoples today with different traditions, cultures, heritages—some of whom consider themselves ancient enemies?

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