What makes prayer effective?

A conversation I had some years ago made me realize that I had been healed of the symptoms of panic attacks over 30 years ago. Until then, I had completely forgotten about them. At the time, those symptoms had been aggressive to the point where I sometimes had to leave work early.

Over the course of several months, I called a Christian Science practitioner many times for treatment through prayer. She often reminded me that I was relying on a Science that could be proved. The attacks became less frequent, and eventually just faded away and were forgotten.

How was this accomplished? What is it that makes such prayer effective?

Jesus’ disciples saw that his prayers healed people. They wanted their prayers to be effective as well. So they asked him to teach them how to pray, and he gave them the Lord’s Prayer. The Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, calls it “that prayer which covers all human needs” (p. 16).

It is not the words of a prayer that heal, but an understanding, a knowing, of the spiritual truth behind the words. Mrs. Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, found that the spiritual significance of the Bible makes prayer based on the Bible’s teachings effective.

She said, “Take away the spiritual signification of Scripture, and that compilation can do no more for mortals than can moonbeams to melt a river of ice” (Science and Health, p. 241). And regarding her ill health in her youth, “...she learned that her own prayers failed to heal her as did the prayers of her devout parents and the church; but when the spiritual sense of the creed was discerned in the Science of Christianity, this spiritual sense was a present help” (Science and Health, p. 351).

So what is the spiritual significance of the Lord’s Prayer?

Science and Health includes a line-by-line spiritual interpretation of the prayer (see pp. 16-17), but here are a few notable points. First, it starts and ends with God. After focusing our attention on God, “Our Father,” and on the facts of God’s harmony, oneness, power, presence, and supremacy, the prayer proceeds to petition. This part of the prayer also requires something of us. We must accept the ideas – the inspiration or daily bread – that we are given, and we must follow this inspiration, which leads to forgiving and being forgiven and away from sin, disease, and death. The prayer closes with a final statement of God’s allness.

The words “I,” “me,” and “my” do not appear in the Lord’s Prayer. It is not about self. It is about the entire world. Jesus expected his followers to pray for the world, not just for themselves. This is echoed in the following counsel from “No and Yes” by Mrs. Eddy: “True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection” (p. 39).

The effective prayer of understanding and obeying the leadings of divine Love, God, can free from any oppressive condition – anything not created or sanctioned by God, good.

The first chapter of Genesis in the Bible tells us that God created man in His own image – as “very good” – and Christian Science teaches that because God, good, is all-power, evil is powerless and can be proven so. Therefore, in prayer we must see evil as powerless and know that it cannot find a foothold in our thinking or anyone else’s.

We must pray from the standpoint of spiritual fact – that God is omnipotent Love, that we are Love’s totally loved children, and that our health and harmony cannot be lost under His loving government.

Effective prayer is heartfelt listening for and humble receptivity to what God knows and is telling us at any given moment – and willingness to follow that inspiration, even if it is not what was expected. This inspiration could be an instantaneous consciousness of the infinitude of good, or it might gradually develop through reasoning on the basis of divine law.

Either way, the result is the understanding of and faith in God that overcomes evil with good. In the case of my healing of panic attacks, it was gradual, but I’ve also had experiences of seeing an immediate change.

Prayer based on divine inspiration, our daily bread – and on following that inspiration in the way that Jesus demonstrated – is effective.

Adapted from an article published in the Sept. 27, 2021, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.