Can You Get What You Want When You Pray?

This is a great question. What if you knew that you would get what you asked for when you prayed? What if you knew that what you are praying for would come true? Is this possible? Or some may wonder, just how do you pray?

Well to start off with there are many different ways to pray. A basic form of prayer that most people know is called petitionary prayer. This is where you are asking God, a Higher Power, Supreme Being for something. Please, God, make this person better. Or please, can I get this job? Or please send me someone to be with – a husband, girlfriend, or partner.

There is also what is termed “affirmative prayer” which is used in the Unity Church, New Thought Movement, Jewish Science and some others. This type of prayer is when you are acknowledging what God is and the nature of God based on your understanding of Him/Her. Wikipedia describes it as, “affirm this desired intention ‘as if already happened’ rather than identifying the illness [or problem] and then asking God for help to eliminate it.”

Another form of prayer is simply listening. This involves shutting out the human thoughts that are constantly going in everyone’s consciousness and listening to spiritual/divine thoughts. The thoughts coming from God would be good thoughts. They would give you peace, courage, hope, faith and counteract the feelings of anxiety, doubt, and fear. By shutting out the feelings of fear and doubt, you would be able to get the necessary thoughts that you need – whether they are thoughts that are healthy, comforting and fearless or a thought telling you which step you needed to take.

The Eastern religions teach a similar mental discipline to control what you are thinking. Through their practice of meditation they are able to still the human thoughts and eventually silence them in their practice. They feel they reach a heightened awareness and a higher state of consciousness through this mental stillness.

Another form of prayer is Scientific prayer. A spiritual leader and teacher from 1821-1910, Mary Baker Eddy found she was able to get quick and reliable results when she prayed. She was able to heal herself and others whether it was of sickness, disability, lack of finances, drought, and any other harmful situation that comes along in human life. She did this through a process of questioning what the material senses seemed to be telling her with her spiritual understanding of what she knew God to be and the nature of God as all-loving and causing and creating only good. She discovered that there is a science of universal laws of God/good that govern everyone and everything. She devoted her life to teaching others how to pray effectively like this as well.

She writes, “Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divine Principle of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation.”

So there are definitely different ways to pray. And if you aren’t finding results from the current way that you are praying, perhaps try some new ones. Hopefully this answers some common questions that people have like – why are some prayers answered and some aren’t? Does the way we think effect our life?

Stay tuned for some more ideas on this vast topic of spirituality. Talk to you soon!

Do You Believe in God?

This is a question people are frequently asked. But there isn’t a question that is more ambiguous. Who is the God you speak of? Is it an old man with a long beard on clouds in the sky? Or a Father-like figure that punishes and judges his children? These are not concepts of God that I can believe in.

What needs to be rectified is this word God and determining what it means to different people before throwing out the concept completely.

The author of the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures defines God as “all true consciousness”, “perfect being”, “all the Life and Mind there is or can be”, and “universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death.”

Now that is more of a God I can believe in. What does believing in this God do for us? What is the point? Can it affect our day-to-day life? And if God is Love and is perfect, why are there disaster, famine, and disease? Stay tuned and we can discuss ideas to some of these questions!

Check out this conversation entitled "Is Religion Religulous?" It includes people's concepts of God, creation, heaven and hell.
http://time4thinkers.com/episodes/?p=61