How far can our prayers go?

He was a man whose life had been made small by false imprisonment. Was he praying for his own release? We can’t know for sure, but we do know from the story in the Bible that this man, Joseph, was leaning on and listening to God. The result was a ripple effect, putting him in a position to help, first, other prisoners and, later, a whole nation and surrounding lands (see Genesis 39-45).

Ultimately, there was nothing small or constrained about Joseph’s life – or his prayers. His consistent and active communion with the Divine did free him from prison in Egypt, but the blessing extended far beyond Joseph’s own circumstances. His trust in God also saved many thousands from famine and later even helped to redeem and sustain family members who’d sold him into slavery.

From Joseph to Jesus, there’s biblical evidence spanning centuries that although prayer begins at the level of the individual, its reach is boundless. And this history of prayer’s big-picture results offers a powerful lesson on what prayer is and what it can do.

While it can take many forms, prayer in Christian Science is fundamentally about becoming conscious of God’s goodness, presence, and power. Prayer helps us recognize that this goodness is a present reality – and that this is a universal fact.

This does bring healing to individual lives, but the effects of prayer don’t stop there. That’s because the universe we live in is made up of thought, as the textbook of Christian Science, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” explains: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 468). So, rather than being something “out there,” everything we see or experience is actually a mental phenomenon.

The challenges we face, no matter how difficult or personal they seem, are truly nothing other than impersonal, mistaken perceptions, correctable by Truth, God. And this is why when thought changes through the activity of Christ – the spirit of divine Truth that Jesus fully realized and proved – the outward expression changes, too. We see results. And it’s also why the effects of prayer are so far-reaching: this activity of the eternal and eternally present Christ, though specific, can’t be arrested or contained.

Do we expect this from our prayers? Mrs. Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, expected it for us. “Beloved Christian Scientists,” she wrote, “keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them.” Then she concluded by articulating the effects of this inspired mental state: “And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 210).

I’ve had enough experiences of praying about one thing, only to see the effects of that prayer appear in other ways, to begin to grasp the magnitude of this promise. In one instance, a friend asked me to pray for her, and several days later, when she reported her healing, she told me that a family member had also been healed of something I hadn’t even known about.

The very nature of Christian Science prayer and the spiritual laws that undergird its efficacy actually make it impossible to pray in a way that’s small or confined. And yet, how often do we find ourselves boxed in by limiting predictions about how much of an impact our prayers can have? The source of this small-mindedness is what the Bible calls the carnal mind – the apparent opposite, even hatred, of what is good, spiritual, inclusive, and universal.

Yet we have an antidote in Jesus’ instructions to every follower, as recorded in Science and Health: “‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature! ... Heal the sick! ... Love thy neighbor as thyself!’” (p. 138).

While we may not find ourselves literally journeying to far-flung locales, we can both acknowledge and trust that our prayers do go out – often beyond the boundaries of who and what we know – to reach, uplift, correct, and heal those who are hungering for help, and even those who aren’t. We can expect that, through Christ, these prayers are leavening individual and collective thought, dispelling the fog of mortality, and revealing the reality and permanence of the true spiritual nature of all as God’s children. And we can look for evidence of these mental shifts in redemption, renewal, and progress in the world at large.

So how far can our prayers go? With an infinite God behind them, farther than we can even imagine.

Adapted from an editorial published in the Oct. 23, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.