Excerpt from the Abridged version of the chapter Prayer from the book, 21st Century Science and Health

Successful prayer is the faith that all things positive and good are possible to God. Nurtured by selfless love, faith expands into spiritual understanding and reveals noteworthy experiences. Whatever has been successfully accomplished in health, religion, and science can be traced to prayer, awareness, and pro-action.

Unspoken thoughts are prayers. Desires are prayers. Sometimes these thoughts and desires are undeveloped or corrupt but God can be trusted to influence and clarify the prayers. We may pray for more righteousness, but is it a desire to be right with God, or to be right in the eyes of human beings?

Motives will be exposed. The prayers for a partner, for money, or control show rather myopic motives even ulterior motives. Through the Science of Mind-healing, the complexity of prayer is broken down and resolved.

Prayer won’t change God, because God is unchanging wisdom and Life, but prayer can adapt us to the Science of spiritual being. The premise of prayer must include the fact that God already knows what you need. We are never telling God something new. Asking God for something, no matter how lofty we sound, doesn’t guarantee satisfaction. Humility is necessary.

Don’t acquire the habit of pleading with God, as though God is a human being with a brain that can be triggered into action. It is also a mistake to think prayer coaxes the Divine Being into reality. The universe of Truth is alive and well—gracefully penetrating and encompassing consciousness now. Spiritual being is intact and scientific prayer brings us into sync with it.

God is divine Mind, intelligence. To spend time trying to give information to God is misleading. Heartfelt silent prayers are adequate to bring us closer to the source of all existence and blessedness. God comprehends all that is complete and perfect and we were made in the image and likeness of God.