Spiritual Solutions

The true purpose of prayer is to know God, to awaken to and to experience the presence of God. That is the true purpose of prayer. But we don’t start there; we don’t start in that lofty place.

We usually come to God in prayer out of human need - that’s where we start. We have a need, and we expect God to solve our problem because we haven’t been able to solve it ourselves.

Most of us don’t really come from the consciousness of wanting to experience God’s presence so much as the pressing matters that are right before us. We want healing now. We want employment now. We want some person in our life so that we’re not lonely any more. That’s where we’re coming from.

Jim Rosemergy, in his book A Closer Walk with God, differentiates between the prayer of the human being and the prayer of the spiritual being - or what he calls the prayer of the divine being. He says that we pray in two different ways.

When we pray from the prayer of a human being we are praying from our wants and our needs, from our outside experiences. When we pray from the prayer of the divine being or the spiritual being we pray in the realization of oneness with God. There’s a difference.

But we come first of all our of our needs. We feel that we need to overcome things; we need to vanquish our enemies, we need to overcome those things that trouble us.

So we ask God, we plead with God, we beg God, and we say affirmations to God. Even when we come to know something of truth principles, we often use our affirmations in a begging way to a God out there somewhere. We want the things we want when we want them - “Get busy, God, do it now” Generally speaking, most of us don’t come to God with open minds to have our true needs filled; we come with preconceived opinions, seeking divine approval for what we want. This is what I want, God, here’s my list; I want this healing, I want this employment, I want this person to fill the gap in my loneliness, I want my bills paid; these are the things I want.

What we think we know about frustrates our direct knowing of God’s presence; we come with minds that are filled with our weaknesses, instead of our strengths, filled with the facts, instead of the unlimited possibilities of infinite mind expressing through us.

All of us do this; it’s a human condition. We come to God out of our needs and our wants instead of out of a desire for a deeper relationship with the truth of our being.

There is one thing that changes the way we focus on prayer.

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To love life is to cherish all creation. This is not a lukewarm attitude toward life but a zest-filled, open-hearted, open-handed attitude that has height and width and depth to it. You welcome and embrace life, warmly and affectionately.

We may sometimes think that to express love there must be someone special to love us in return - someone who will reciprocate our love. What a joy it is to dicover our unlimited capacity to love, to understand that love is an innate attribute that flows from us, not simply a response to someone else or something else.

In the scriptures we are told that God is love, and that we are made in the image and after the likeness of God. We are alive with love! As we tap the reservoir of God’s love within us, seeming lack gives way to plenty; grief is transformed into comfort; and physical discomfort yields to health.

Yes, the dynamic activity of Spirit inspires us to lovingly embrace life!

This is the third week in the season of Advent, a time of preparation for Christmas and the rebirth of the Christ Spirit within us. Some churches and families or individuals use what is known as an Advent wreath during this season and each week light one of four candles which symbolize Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. The candle that is lighted for the third week in Advent is lighted for Love.

I invite you to light a candle for Love this week, and even if you don’t light a physical candle you can light a symbolic candle in your heart. As you light your candle, I invite you to listen to this following message of love:

To be spiritually healthy and successful in our endeavors we must learn the importance of forgiveness, both forgiveness of others and forgiveness of ourselves. Ernest Holmes, in his book “Creative Mind and Success,” says this:

 ”The person who is to succeed will never let his mind dwell on past mistakes. He will forgive the past in  his life and in the lives of other people. If he makes a mistake he will at once forgive it. He will know that so long as he desires any good, there is nowhere in the universe anything that opposes him.”

Myrtle Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, says in her book of Letters that “So long as we remember experiences that were unhappy, as we saw them once and still see them and speak of them, we shall be unable to demonstrate joy and real prosperity and health in our own life. . . . it is so important to keep going to God-Mind for more light and love and life and sustance. We have power to change our soul’s impressions, our subsconscious, through the indwelling Christ mind, and so change our body and its functioning and also the conditions about us.”

In this season of Advent, the four weeks leading up to the Christmas celebration, we can take the opportunity to examine our consciousness and where needed, exercise the practice of forgiveness. This will help us to clear the way for new understanding, greater success, and a reawakening of the Christ consciousness within ourselves.

If you’ve ever found it difficult to forgive someone, or you’d just like to know some steps to open the way for rich blessings in you life, I invite you to listen to the podcast below.

Play Now:

 Clear the Way to Your Success [1:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download