There's A Story about a boy who finds a beautiful butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. Trying to be of help, the boy tears the silken covering. But instead of flying away, the butterfly waves its wings a few times and falls to the ground.

Later, the boy learns that the cocoon had offered just enough resistance to the butterfly so that it could strengthen its wings. Only after the butterfly had gained enough strength to break through the silken covering would it have been ready to fly. Freeing the butterfly prematurely had deprived it of its chance for lasting freedom.

Sometimes the same thing happens to people. When we offer charity that deprives someone of the opportunity to fly free of poverty—through a stronger reliance on God—we act like the boy in that story. Instead, we would do well to follow this counsel from the Hebrew Talmud: "The noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting charity; and the best alms are to show and to enable a man to dispense with alms" (quoted in Miscellaneous Writings, Mary Baker Eddy, p. ix).

I was once shown this "noblest charity." Over 26 years ago, when black people in South Africa suffered poverty orchestrated in large part by legislation that disfavored us, I applied to take a two-week course of instruction in Christian Science.

Because of the poverty in my home, and the fact that neither my husband nor I was working (I was on maternity leave), I hoped that the teacher would be charitable enough to waive the tuition fee. Instead, he told me he would pray to help me prove that God provided everything I needed.

I asked myself how on earth I could raise the money in only two weeks. Many things discouraged me. Who would take care of my two-month-old baby? I wondered. And where would I stay, since the class was being held in Johannesburg, and the laws forbade blacks from being there after 9 p.m.

In spite of my worries, I started praying for myself and my family. In particular, I held on to this sentence from the first page of Science and Health: "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds." The book of Isaiah in the Bible helped me, too. It says: "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing" (35:1, 2). This was reassuring!

By the end of one week, my husband found a job, after having been unemployed for six months. What was more, the job paid weekly wages. So I went off to Johannesburg with half of the tuition from his first week's wages, and I paid the instructor the other half the following week.

As it turned out, my sister-in-law's daughter, who had an infant, agreed to baby-sit my son. And my sister, who lived near Johannesburg in the township of Soweto, was happy to have my sister-in-law and me, along with our babies, share her family's four-room house.

Yes indeed, Isaiah's promise was fulfilled—my "desert" blossomed abundantly.

By refusing to waive my tuition fee—and by praying with me—my teacher helped show me true charity. This was a love that lifted me out of the mentality of accepting handouts or labeling myself as poor, disadvantaged, deprived. It was from God—a spiritual love. I no longer thought it acceptable to take charity without giving back anything in return. In this case, what I gave back was my trust, steadfastness, confidence, and time spent in spiritual study, all of which brought to light for me the impossibility of being cut off from God's goodness.

In many cases, poverty appears to be much more threatening than it did in my situation. The World Health Organization's Report for 1995 classified "extreme poverty" as "the world's biggest killer and the greatest cause of ill-health and suffering across the globe." A 1998 report indicated that "the grimmest poverty" continues to be responsible for much of the ill-health and many of the early deaths in the developing world in particular. Clearly, we need to extend the "noblest charity" to all those in these conditions. But how?

Prayer antidotes poverty. My experience was an example. Poverty appears to have the power to deprive, to isolate, to humiliate, to limit. But because it is evil, it can have no real power—not if "power belongeth unto God," who is entirely good (Ps. 62:11).

Evil seems real to us when we associate it with a person, a place, or a thing. To conquer it, we need to stop making such associations. Evil of any kind is something we incorrectly believe to be true about the nature of God and what God created. Prayer exposes the powerlessness of poverty, or any evil, by showing it stripped of all identity. "Nothing is real and eternal,—nothing is Spirit,—but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense" (Science and Health, p. 71).

If we are to extend the "noblest charity," we need to begin grasping—and demonstrating—the powerlessness of evil. In addition, we may need to pray specifically about some of the cultural practices that contribute to people's acceptance of poverty as inevitable. Witchcraft and the occult practice of mental manipulation, for example, are thought to cause poverty. In some areas of Africa, Asia, South America, and in certain European countries, it is believed that being cursed can cause disasters such as drought and crop loss. But there is a remedy for these mistaken assumptions, which lies in understanding God's blessing. The fact is that each of us is blessed by God. No one stands outside of His abundance, and nothing can stop the showers of blessings God continuously pours out on His creation. Because each of us is blessed, no one can be cursed. Knowing this is complete protection from anyone who tries to do harm. Understanding that God's blessing is universal benefits everyone, including people considered poverty-stricken.

Another key aspect in combating poverty is a higher understanding of giving. The Bible says Jesus once "looked up and saw some rich people tossing their gifts into the offering box. He also saw a poor widow putting in two pennies." Jesus approved her gift, remarking that she had given more than all the rest of them. He said further, "Everyone else gave what they didn't need. But she is very poor and gave everything she had" (see Luke 21:1–4).

What was this "everything" the poor widow had? In addition to her two mites, I believe she gave generously of her love, gratitude, honesty, kindness, humility—the abundant supply of good ideas that stamp out poverty.

The widow didn't fold her arms because she had little compared to the rich. Nor did she hold out her palm, hoping for a handout. She showed a deep regard for abundant giving by placing all that she had into the treasury, keeping nothing back.

Generally speaking, one receives in proportion to the measure one gives. If you give with judgment and limitation, your life is likely to be judgmental and limited. Such miserly giving courts poverty. The remedy is to give not from your surplus, but according to what is right before God.

A beautiful example of such generous giving was published in The Christian Science Journal of May 1992. A man in Kenya wrote from Luanda to thank the editors for helping him with ideas on an article he was writing for the magazine. He said: "I live in a mud hut with corrugated iron roofing on a small plot of land in the middle of nowhere.... I really feel called to writing for these wonderful periodicals. I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on this noble task because I have to earn my keep and support my family, and I do greatly appreciate your encouraging tips." This man, whom I have met, has no electricity, no computer, no running water, no car. Yet his love for God and for humanity are so great that after walking home from work, he writes articles in an effort to share with others what he knows about God's goodness.

Like the woman who gave her two mites, this man is giving his all. He is not waiting for a better situation or a handout. Instead, he is taking full advantage of the opportunity presently afforded him, and is proving himself capable of making a contribution because of his relation to God, the source of all right opportunity and achievement.

Not that people shouldn't ever give others money or material resources. But instead of thoughtlessly doing so, they would do well first to consider whether that is the "noblest charity" they can offer. "Practice makes perfect." The more we pray and live the truth of our prayers, the less we believe that evil has power over anyone. Our mental "wings" grow strong enough to express the charity that helps eliminate poverty.