Lesson 7 - How Shall We Pray?

HOW SHALL WE PRAY?

Purpose: To show why we pray and the best method of prayer.

[33] A new conception of God calls for a new method of prayer. We no longer feel that we must overcome God's reluctance, but rather that we are to lay hold of His willingness. More willing is He to give than we are to receive. In order, then, to learn how to pray, let us turn to our Basis, Omnipresence. This means God everywhere; therefore God includes me. I can say with authority, “I am in God and God is in me. Therefore I share God-Being, God-Mind, God-Life.” “All mine is thine, saith the Lord.” By sharing Himself with us God gives us every good gift. Before we call, He has supplied. God is Abundance.

If I seem to lack any good thing it is because I have not believed fully in God's immediate Presence.

God is doing His part. I do not need to beg or to ask Him to do more. But I must do my part.

I must train my thought to recognize steadfastly the immediacy and fullness of God's Presence.

I must not permit an opposing thought to stay. What is the commonest opposing thought? It is fear; for fear denies the presence of God. Hence we must not permit fear thought to stay for a moment. We can put it out by denying it, and also by substituting for fear its opposite, [33] conscious unity, love; by affirming, “I do not fear, for God is here this moment,” and by repeating this statement with positiveness until all fear goes.

Inharmony of any kind, sickness or lack, shows that we are ignoring God's presence.

Let us affirm that which is consistent with God-Presence; health, ever-present, changeless health; supply, ever-present, abundant supply.

But this is not all of prayer; in fact, it is the lesser part. Prayer is active communion. There is no passivity or resignation in prayer. When we have prayed, let us answer our own prayer. God has answered it before we called. Let us affirm the presence of All-Good. Our affirmations are for the purpose of clearing our mentality of wrong conceptions and of establishing within it the certainty of God--health, abundance, power, joy.

We bring our own prayers to fulfillment by living them out in our lives.

Let me illustrate: An unhappy condition exists between me and a friend of long standing. It hurts. I learn by turning to my Basis that I can right it by prayer. I deny separation in God-Presence, and affirm, that as children of God, we share His Divine nature and are therefore loving and kind always. I make this prayer once a day or as often as opportunity offers. Now for the answering of this prayer within myself. I must watch my thinking between my prayers, that it keeps true to the prayer. I must let no thought of anger, fear, or hurt stay in my thinking. Perfect Love, which I have [35] affirmed, and which is the Truth of God and of myself, casts out the opposites. I have prayed for perfect love. I must demonstrate it in thought and deed. This is the royal road to heaven--harmony of living.

After praying and living quietly the love prayed for, there usually comes an opportunity to serve the friend; to do something kind for him or her. I must do it with joy and without ostentation of self-consciousness. If the service meets with rebuff, I will not allow myself to be discomfited, but I will persist in my attitude of love, remembering that, “Love endureth all things, thinketh no evil”--conquers every adverse condition.

True prayer which consists of right thinking and right living, never fails.

It corrects our mistakes, makes us healthful, happy, more loving and more efficient; it brings realization of Good along many lines. Praying does all of this by bringing to us a deeper and clearer realization of God-Presence. Through this realization we are uplifted, purified, glorified; we radiate God-Qualities. Our lives are answered prayers. Our word and our work go out into the world from the radiant Center of Truth, to uplift, to bless, to heal.