Be unselfish—pray for yourself!
One of our articles this week sheds light on an important topic: praying for ourselves (see Margit Hammerstrom, “Prayer: The best daily self-care”). And it calls out some of the things that can divert us from doing this. These include the belief that taking time for such prayer is selfish.
Prioritizing our own need for spiritual reflection could sound selfish. But if the outcome even distantly echoes the results of Jesus’ communion with God, alone in prayer, then taking time to pray for ourselves is anything but selfish. Following one such prayer time, Jesus healed a multitude of people, after identifying the apostles who would shepherd his followers to do likewise (see Luke 6:12–19).
It is instructive to consider how Mary Baker Eddy prayed for herself. She faithfully followed counsel the Apostle Paul had urged upon the early Christians: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). One of her early students recalls her saying, “in substance”: “The first thing I do in the morning when I awake is to declare I shall have no other mind before divine Mind, and become fully conscious of this, and adhere to it throughout the entire day; then the evil cannot touch me” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. I, p. 353).
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