There are times when I hear patients voice frustration with the use of denial in their prayers. “I’ve spent all day denying the error, but nothing is changing,” they protest.
Denial of error is critical to success in spiritual healing, for one must cease believing in error to be free of its bad effect. However, denial, by itself, is not sufficient to bring about healing. One needs to move from focusing on error to understanding Truth. It’s understanding Truth that brings a healing home.
Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Truth is affirmative, and confers harmony” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 418). It’s Truth that brings harmony and peace.
Like playing football or basketball. Defense plays a key role in holding the opposition in check, but it doesn’t score points. It’s running offense that score points.
For success with prayer, be sure to play offense! Move forward fearlessly with Truth and leave error behind.
Running with Truth brings the freedom you seek.
Thank you for this.
This is so helpful, Evan!!
Thank you, Evan. Reminds me of “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 201:17–18)
Perfect! Thank you!!!
I have read the following by Mrs. Eddy.
“Students do not pray enough. They should go by themselves at least three times a day to pray. Their prayers should consist of much giving thanks, more realization of the perfect as well as the denial of error. There is too much denial of error and too little realization of the perfect.”
“The lie and the liar behind illness and injury”. By Lesley E. Gort. From the December 21, 1998 issue of The Christian Science Sentinel:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2fc5ki3vj8c?s=copylink
Thanks J! Great article. I loved how the author *acted* on her prayers by standing up to walk even though the pain was initially still suggesting that her treatment wasn’t effective. I’ve learned I often need to act contrary to the material sense testimony. Doing that is natural when we KNOW the truths we’ve been affirming are true and the materials senses testimony is not true. And doing that I’ve found is helpful in breaking the mesmerism.
Hi Sue Graf. This is the article you were asking about in yesterday’s SV:
“The disbelief that leads to healing” By Dorothy H. Jones. From the February 1979 issue of The Christian Science Journal:
https://journal.christianscience.com/shared/view/21y2oo2fvm8?s=copylink
Don’t just deny it by Deborah Huebsch
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2hi8e9fd3vu?s=copylink
Thank you Evan and all. Here’s another article that I came across years ago on this topic.
The Church’s Broad Responsibility in Handling Animal Magnetism
ROY GARRETT WATSON
https://journal.christianscience.com/shared/view/1kupsyzigr6?s=copylink
This paragraph from the article I thought was particularly helpful in explaining the correct process of CS treatment.
The method of handling animal magnetism is often referred to as “affirming the truth and denying the error,” and this process is called “working on the problem as one is taught by Christian Science.” Too frequently, however, the “work” referred to is merely a prolonged and emphatic denial of the reality of the belief, as though the very insistence of its nothingness is sufficient to cause its annihilation. As a matter of fact, a too insistent and unsupported denial of error may act as an affirmation of its presence and intensify the belief in its reality! Jesus’ statement, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,”6 shows that it is really the affirmation of the truth, not the knowing of the unreality of the error alone, which causes the mists of error to evaporate and disappear.