Faith Viewpoint: True Prayer Results in Genuine Joy, Trust and Healing.

This article by the Committee on Publication for North West England, Jason Salisbury, appeared in the Westmorland Gazette on 29th April 2018.

Someone asked what the reason for my hope is. For me, God's saving presence is more than an innate optimism and merely hopeful religious thinking. It's a question of actual experience: my life - and the lives of others - radically altered by our experience of God. I love the daily, heart-changing moments of prayer and listening, of spiritual study and learning more about God and what it means that all of us are the children of a God whose very nature is Love. True prayer results in genuine joy, trust, and healing that flows from communion with the God of all creation. This is the God that we learn about in the Lord's Prayer.

My parents, both Christian Scientists, rooted their prayers in the Lord's Prayer during a family crisis when one of their sons had a severe learning disability. This meant that when he was nearly seven, he had no reading ability and only recognised five letters of the alphabet. His school, despite their best efforts, had exhausted all avenues and there was no improvement. Through prayer, my parents quieted their fears for their son and drew closer to God. English was my mother's second language and she had no teaching background. She told me that she listened to God in prayer and followed through with the ideas that came to her. Progress became rapid.As that son, I not only witnessed but experienced the effect of prayer.

Through experiences like this, so holy and full of grace, substance is given to my hope.

Jason Salisbury

Christian Science Churches