Mary Baker Eddy , the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 1), "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."

Prayer is the desire for good. It transcends such personal, selfish desires in the world as: I want money; I want power; I want beauty; I want fame; I want position; I want adulation; I want health; I want happiness.

Christ Jesus lifted "I want" to the plane of answered prayer when he said (Luke 22:42), "Not my will, but thine, be done." Jesus understood God's will to be the expression of divine Love. He taught his followers to pray (Matt. 6:10), "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

Christian Science teaches that prayer is not for the satisfying of a personal wish or desire. Prayer in Christian Science is the realization and acknowledgment of God's goodness and love. The calm knowing that existence is under the jurisdiction of the all-loving God is the prayer that heals.

Since God is all-loving, He must be the consistently beneficent Principle of being. He does not change. He is wholly reliable. His power is ever present. Because His love is impartial and omnipresent, there is no place for evil—sin, disease, or death. God is Mind, the divine consciousness, whose intelligence and harmonious action are always available to everyone.

As we come to understand these healing truths, we find how natural it is to desire good. Christian Science translates our hearts' desires into spiritual prayers. It leads thought away from selfish seeking and shows us that human desires are actually basic spiritual needs.

On this premise Christian Science permanently satisfies what appear to be human desires with the Christ, Truth. Material methods are merely pleasant palliatives that treat desire as a recurring human problem. But Christian Science follows the example of the Master. It lifts desire to the level of prayer, where thought is seen to be reaching out to God.

This reaching out to divine Love is one of the profound intuitions of the human mind. The desire for good is the simplest form of prayer. In the Glossary of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy defines "good" as follows (p. 587): "God; Spirit; omnipotence; omniscience; omnipresence; omni-action." Here good is defined in its absolute, or spiritual, sense.

Every prayerful, righteous desire gravitates toward God, good. It leads the sincere individual into the certainty of answered prayer. When desire is selfless and pure, unanswered prayer is impossible. We are told in James (4:3) "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

True desire, true prayer, is characterized by the outgoing sense of love and brotherhood. It blesses its enemies with mercy and forgiveness. True desire seeks the truth for truth's own sake and is satisfied when it finds it.

Every upright person wants that which is serviceable and fit; he desires that which is fitting in the moral order of the universe. And does not each one want prosperity, benefit, and not harm? Deep down in every heart is the desire to be good at something, to make good, to be successful in one's work. This intuitive desire to express good is a form of prayer. It brings a healing influence into one's life, and it leads to a higher understanding of God. We find God when we really want good.

When we act honestly, courageously, kindly, we are acknowledging God's presence and power. When we acknowledge good, we acknowledge God. The simplest act of obedience is an act of prayer and indicates our inherent desire for good, In small ways we begin to avail ourselves of God's absolute power for good. The necessary corollary of total goodness is the powerlessness and nothingness of animal magnetism, or evil mind. The teaching of God's allness and of evil's unreality is the cardinal point of difference between Christian Science and all other systems.

Throughout the centuries many respected thinkers have believed that evil was created by God. This belief made evil the product of good, a belief contradicted by Christian metaphysics. We read in the Bible (Hab. I: 13), "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Mrs. Eddy's entire presentation of Christian Science inspiringly and incisively declares evil's nothingness. In her writings she teaches the student that his concept of an evil universe will be reduced in proportion to his desire for good. Accompanying this demonstration of pure desire, there are many healings to encourage one's progress.

The desire for good necessarily includes the desire to be delivered from evil, or error, a thought clearly stated in the Lord's Prayer. When one replaces the error that two plus two is five with the correct answer, four, it is mathematical knowledge which has enabled one to find the answer, thus saving himself from perpetuating this misconception. A qualified engineer, in building a bridge to span a wide space, is aware of how much tolerance for sway must be included in his specifications in order to save the enterprise from calamity.

The mathematician's knowledge and the awareness of the engineer are examples of the understanding which saves one from mistakes. Prayer that is based on the spiritual understanding of God's absolute goodness and perfection and the consequent perfection of His creation, the spiritual universe and spiritual man, is the prayer that saves mankind from the mistaken belief of life, substance, and identity in matter.

God's goodness never stops, never changes. This beautiful fact is presently demonstrable to the student of Christian Science. Moreover, it is a fact indispensable to every person in the world, whatever his religion or background. Each individual's desire for good, in whatever form, can be transformed into prayer. Let us work more earnestly for the purification of desire in our own lives. Our desires constitute our prayers; and if we desire to learn of God, the answer will come in purposeful healing work.

May we keep in our hearts the prayer of Isaiah when he said (26:8,9): "The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."