Wednesday, November 3, 2010

THE PROVINCE OF PRAYER

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Prayer, unless in liaison with the will and actions
of the personal spiritual forces and material supervisors of a realm, can have no direct effect upon one’s physical environment. While there is a very definite limit to the province of the petitions of prayer, such limits do not equally apply to the faith of those who pray.

Prayer is not a technique for curing real and organic
diseases, but it has contributed enormously
to the enjoyment of abundant health and to the
cure of numerous mental, emotional, and nervous
ailments. And even in actual bacterial disease,
prayer has many times added to the efficacy
of other remedial procedures. Prayer has turned
many an irritable and complaining invalid
into a paragon of patience and made him
an inspiration to all other human sufferers.

No matter how difficult it may be to reconcile
the scientific doubtings regarding the efficacy
of prayer with the ever-present urge to
seek help and guidance from divine sources,
never forget that the sincere prayer of faith
is a mighty force for the promotion of personal
happiness, individual self-control, social harmony,
moral progress, and spiritual attainment.

Prayer, even as a purely human practice,
a dialogue with one’s alter ego, constitutes a technique of the most efficient approach to the realization of those reserve powers of human nature which are stored and conserved in the unconscious realms of the human mind. Prayer is a sound psychologic practice, aside from its religious implications and its spiritual significance. It is a fact of human experience that most persons, if sufficiently hard pressed, will pray in some way to some source of help.

Do not be so slothful as to ask God to solve
your difficulties, but never hesitate to ask him
for wisdom and spiritual strength to guide
and sustain you while you yourself resolutely
and courageously attack the problems at hand.

Prayer has been an indispensable factor
in the progress and preservation of religious
civilization, and it still has mighty contributions
to make to the further enhancement and
spiritualization of society if those who pray
will only do so in the light of scientific facts,
philosophic wisdom, intellectual sincerity, and
spiritual faith. Pray as Jesus taught his disciples —
honestly, unselfishly, with fairness,
and without doubting.

But the efficacy of prayer in the personal
spiritual experience of the one who prays
is in no way dependent on such a worshiper’s
intellectual understanding, philosophic acumen,
social level, cultural status, or other mortal
acquirements. The psychic and spiritual
concomitants of the prayer of faith are
immediate, personal, and experiential.
There is no other technique whereby every man,
regardless of all other mortal accomplishments,
can so effectively and immediately approach
the threshold of that realm wherein he can
communicate with his Maker,
where the creature contacts with the reality
of the Creator, with the indwelling
Thought Adjuster.
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From THE URANTIA BOOK
Part III, 91, 6
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