Spiritual Solutions

Several years ago, I had time to be with my grandson, Rowan, who was visiting from England. He was eleven at the time and came over by himself. We went to Disney, the Magic Kingdom, and then Universal Studios. We went on all the rides, Space Mountain, Back to the Future, Terminator 2, Alien Encounter, Jaws, Twist, and all those kind of things. Then we spent a day at home to recover, and planned to go to Adventure Island in Tampa on the Friday.
 
Kathryn and I had a cat we had adopted after a friend of ours who owned her died a couple of months previous. Tanya was a calico, about three years old, and skittish; she hid under the bed at the slightest provocation and with our grandson being there she spent a lot of time under the bed.

On the Thursday we hadn’t seen much of her, but I knew she’d been out from under the bed because the food had been eaten. Then when we got up Friday morning, the food hadn’t been eaten and I wondered where she was. I asked Kathryn if she’d seen Tanya last night and she said she hadn’t. So I thought well maybe she’s still under the bed; I looked under the bed and she wasn’t there. We looked everywhere in the house, in all the closets and everywhere around – no cat! She was gone; she was out of the house somewhere.

She must have sneaked sometime on Thursday, so she’d been out all night. So what did we do? We started to worry, right? We hoped she hadn’t gone too far; we hoped we could get her back, we hoped she hadn’t been hit by a car, all those kind of things. And we all had places to go, Rowan and I to Adventure Island and Kathryn had some appointments. So Rowan and I looked all around the neighborhood, we went on the roof and looked all around the roof; there was no sign of her. All around the house, nothing there, and to different gardens down the road, but nothing. She was nowhere in sight.

We called the SPCA, Friends of Strays, and the animal shelter; we put a “lost calico cat” sign on a tree, and then went on our separate ways. The animal shelter people said we should come there between 4:30 and 5 pm to check on the “found” book, so we thought we’d call there on the way home from Tampa. But we got stuck in traffic in Tampa and realized they would be closed by the time we got there, so we went straight home.

As soon as we got home, I asked Kathryn, “Is Tanya here?” She said, “Well, I have a story to tell you.” She said she got home about three o’clock and she felt moved to go out in the back yard and sit there in a chair and pray. She said, “I felt that I really needed to get deeply still and pray. I prayed out loud, ‘in the name of Jesus Christ.’”

When you pray “in the name of Jesus Christ” you are praying in the nature of Jesus Christ, and you are praying in the nature of God within you. When you pray in that consciousness you are accessing all of the wisdom and power of the living God.

So Kathryn said she got really, really still, and then she opened her eyes and made a move to go into the back yard next door. She looked back at our roof, and there was the cat!

There was a small deck on the roof of the house we lived in at that time. So Kathryn went up the spiral staircase which led to the deck. Tanya was way over on the roof, and so Kathryn sat down with her back to the cat and just murmured her name, “Good girl, Tanya.” Finally the cat came up to her and started nudging her and loving her. Tanya was a big heavy cat and Kathryn couldn’t get hold of her and she still had to get back down the steps. So she went down and got some food and water and brought it back up for her.

We came home around 5:30 pm and Tanya had come down from the roof and gone into hiding again. Finally she scooted around and came in the back door which we had left open.

The important lesson here is that we found her because Kathryn prayed; she took time to be still and to pray instead of hurrying around doing the busy work. When she did, she looked up and there was the cat.

How often we tend to do things the hard way, instead of the easy way! It’s prayer that brings about right action and positive results. When you bring things together in prayer then good things begin to happen for you.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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Today I want to take a look at the true source of power. What is our true power? All of us need daily power. I talked with someone the other day and said, “How are you doing?” He responded, “Well, I’ll be all right if I can just get through the day” That’s a pretty heavy situation to be in. But in a sense, many of us feel that way, if only we have enough power to get through the day, if only we have enough power to do the things that are ours to do. We need that daily power and we need to know the source of that power.

After the resurrection, the disciples were sort of in that same situation. They’d gone to what was known as the Upper Room and they were feeling dejected, helpless and powerless; they didn’t know what to do with themselves or which way to turn. And Jesus appeared to them. He instructed them to wait in the city, to wait in Jerusalem, until the promise of the Father came.

We can find that story in the gospel of Luke, also in the book of Acts which records the activities of the apostles after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. It says “He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father.” Then a little later it says, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”

These were tremendous words of hope that he gave to them. And we know that, after this time, we come to the experience of what has been called Pentecost. Pentecost was actually a Jewish celebration fifty days after Passover, but we remember Pentecost for different reasons. I won’t go into that at this time because I want to focus on the steps to realizing the true source of power so we can begin to apply it to our daily lives.

Jesus’ words remind me also of the Old Testament, when the prophet Isaiah was speaking to the exiles from Israel who were in Babylon. He was giving them similar words of hope. He is talking about the presence of God in our lives, and says, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” There we get a vision of new strength, new vitality, a surge of energy that comes when we tap into the true source of our power.

So God meets us where we are, bringing us blessings all the time. But we have to be open to receive those blessings. So, what is the source of true power and how do we find it in our daily living? What hinders us, what stops us from receiving God power? It’s available to us all the time as the promises say: wait for the promise that will renew you. But we don’t always experience it. And why is that? What hinders us?

There are two things really that hinder us from experiencing God’s presence. The first one is hurry, and the second one is worry; hurry and worry. We tend to do a lot of both. We think we have to hurry to get places, but the thing that falls by the wayside when we get in a hurry consciousness is our time of true prayer. That is the first thing to suffer, because we don’t give enough time to it. We might say, “I don’t have time to pray right now because I have to hurry up, I have to get somewhere, to do something.” So the prayer often gets pushed to the back.

Hurry hinders us, it begins to ease the awareness of God out of our lives and we begin to slip away from the true source of power. The power is not out there somewhere; the power is truly within us. We can only find that power if we take time to pray, to get still and open ourselves to receive it. Hurry interferes with that; and the other thing is worry.

Worry hinders us receiving God’s blessings. And how does it do that? It blocks the flow of good to us, because worry simply means that we’re not trusting God. We say we believe in God and trust in God, but then why do we worry? We all do it, we worry. Worry gets in the way of us feeling and knowing God’s presence because we’re not really trusting. We may believe in God but we’re not really trusting God.

We have to begin to really trust God, to let the hurry go and to lessen the worry. Then we can begin to receive the blessings of God’s presence.

If we would just take the time to get still and pray, the answer will come; our direction will be there for us, our way will be opened. But we must take the time, put aside the worry, and take the time to pray.

The disciples recognized the importance of prayer. It says in the scripture that they did stay in Jerusalem in the Upper Room, “and they were all there, in one accord, in prayer.” Mary, the mother of Jesus, and other women were there, and the brothers of Jesus were there. And they all prayed together.

Sometime later, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit touched them as Jesus had promised, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

Daily power is our greatest need and prayer is our greatest resource. Sometimes we think of the demonstration of power as a brute strength, assertiveness, and aggressiveness to get things done and to thunder through life. But that’s not true power.

True power is never noisy, it doesn’t beat the drum, it doesn’t toot its own horn, it never puts people down, and it never belittles others. True power takes decisive action and claims authority of the inner self as is necessary, but it doesn’t make a big fanfare of it. True power is always demonstrated in gentleness, but sometimes we forget that and think we have to put on the big show.

David, says in one of the psalms, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress; in him will I trust. Thou savest me from violence and thy gentleness hath made me great.”

Unfortunately, we often equate gentleness with meekness and think of it as weakness. But it’s not so, for in true gentleness and in true meekness there is strength. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Some might say “That’s not really true, because it’s the pushy ones who inherit the earth, the ones who are aggressive and assertive and want to take over, they inherit the earth.”

Now, the translation of the Greek word “meek” really means “tame,” in relation to having tamed the powers within ourselves, having them in harness as it were, in order to move them in the right direction, to be aligned with the true power within us. That’s what the word really means; it doesn’t mean weak at all. It implies a sense of serenity, a sense of centeredness, of harnessing those powers within us.

In the French translation of that same passage, it translates to “Blessed are the debonair.” That gives us a totally different feeling, one of courtesy and charm. Put those two translations together and we can come up with a word in our contemporary society that really characterizes this attitude of being. What is that word? Cool!

“Blessed are the cool.” When you are cool, you have it all together, you don’t get upset about things, you don’t have to push your way through things; you are smooth, you are cool, you go through things easily, you project an image of gentleness and confidence and you move forward with assurance.

St. Francis de Sales says, “Nothing is as strong as gentleness, and nothing is as gentle as true strength.” It’s prayer that gets it all together, and when you get it all together you suddenly find that you have that secret power that goes before you to make your way safe, easy, and successful.

God is blessing you now, as you stay cool!

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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THE ALTAR

1st Sunday. Read Matthew 5:21-26.

The altar represents a fixed, definite center in the consciousness of man. It is a place within where we meet the Lord face to face and are willing to give up our sins, give up the lower for the higher, the personal for the impersonal, the animal for the divine.

The altar, mentioned in Revelation 11:1 symbolizes the consciousness of full consecration that takes place in the temple of worship, the body. “Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.”

The altar to the unknown God is a yearning to know the unrevealed Spirit, and a reaching out of the mind for a fuller realization of its source.

Prayer does not change God–it changes us. Sincere desire is a form of prayer. Deep desire is essential for spiritual growth. It is desire–earnest, intense desire–that draws the whole being up out of mortality and its transient joys into the power to appreciate and receive real spiritual blessings. This is a demonstration, the proving of a Truth principle in one’s body and affairs. It is the manifestation of an ideal when its accomplishment has been brought about by one’s conformity in thought, word, and act, to the creative principle of God.

Kneeling at the altar I take my statement of Truth and hold it steadily in mind until I get my realization, the logic of my mind is satisfied, and there is the lifting up and expanding of soul consciousness.

To this end I affirm: “It is not I, but the Father abiding in me doeth his works.’”

Questions:

1. What does going to the altar signify?

2. What is the altar to the unknown God?

3. What happens when we pray?

4. What part does desire play in our spiritual growth?

Let me remember always that prayer does not change God–prayer changes me. Prayer brings me closer to God, doser to the light, closer to Truth.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at www.alanrowbotham.com
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In praying for oneself or another, first there is the awareness of a need. Not a sense of lack that implies a limitation, but the concern of a need and the concern of its fulfillment. The concern you may have over someone you love or about conditions in general is a step in the direction of demonstration, but we cannot stop with concern alone or else we settle into the dead-end street of worry and despair.

If you are concerned about another, nothing can be accomplished in prayer until we overcome this concern. Whatever or whoever you are praying for, remember this first step. Lay aside your concern and dwell in the consciousness of your Oneness. It is your attunement with power. Then you are ready to pray.

The next logical step is faith in and awareness of the principle. First the concern, or the awareness of the need, then the healing of the concern, or the awareness of God’s all-sufficiency in all things. The thing for us to do is to realize the Truth of the promise, “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.” (Ps. 138:8)

By nature the average person is concerned about the health or the welfare of those about him or her. The most helpful step that we can take, in the interest of that with which we are concerned, is the step in faith from the thought of concern to the dynamic idea of Truth.

You can pray about the situation and pray for the welfare of the one who concerns you, but your prayer must be based on right thinking and right seeing. To hold the problem in negative thought or to see it in anxious concern is, as Paul would say, seeing “in a mirror dimly.”

The most helpful thing you can do for another, regardless of his or her need, is to think positive thoughts about the person. Positive thinking might actually be a synonym for prayer. You may define prayer in many ways but essentially it is the act of changing our thought from the limited to the limitless. “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” we have been told in Romans 12:2 and this must be the starting point of all effective prayer.

Certainly, almost unbelievable, wonderful demonstrations of health and guidance and success through prayer can be observed all the time. However, we must clearly understand that prayer is not begging God to do something for someone or something that concerns us. When you pray about something, if there is any action as a result of prayer, you help in the action. But God can do no more for you than God can do through you. You are a channel for the expression of His wisdom, love, substance and power.

Often we are urged, “Let go and let God.” This means to let go of your tense, anxious concern over a situation and let God express His omnipresence through your positive awareness. True prayer is the stirring up within you a sense of God-power and turning the full force of this power, like a powerful searchlight, on that which may concern you.

When you desire to help someone else, the starting point of that help must be within yourself. You may say, “But it’s my husband (or wife, or friend, etc.) who needs help.” Yes, but it is you who are concerned and, as long as you feel anxious concern, you are giving life and substance to that about which you are concerned.

Your thought of fear, your image of some terrible possibility, or your gnawing anxiety is really a very powerful and continuing prayer in reverse. No matter how great may be your desire to help or bless someone or some condition, your negative concern may effectively completely negate your successful wish and prayer for healing.

No matter what you may be concerned about in the life or experience of another, if you really want to help, you must change your thought from fear to faith; you must correct your faulty vision in which you are focusing your attention on that which is disturbing. You must heal your thought of concern.

When you feel a release, a sense of freedom from fear and concern, then the work within you is done. At that point, in the consciousness and with a positive declaration of Truth, speak the word of healing, harmony and peace, and know that “it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Is. 55:11) It is in this way that you fulfill the assurance which is “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.”

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over forty years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at www.alanrowbotham.com
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Kahlil Gibran, in his book The Prophet, says, “What is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether.” In other words, prayer is a matter of conditioning our minds to God rather than conditioning God to our needs; it has to do with opening our lives to God, with the expansion of our consciousness.

Eric Butterworth suggests that if you owned a cabin in the mountains and wanted to make it fresh and habitable after a long winter, you wouldn’t have to induce the air in through the doors, or plead with the sunlight to bathe the windows. No, the instant you open the doors and windows, air and sunshine surge in of their own accord. Similarly, prayer is simply opening our lives, so that we may receive whatever God has been trying to bestow. It is conditioning our lives to God.

Jesus says, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matt. 6:8) You may say, “So why ask?” Simply because the doors and windows of your soul tend of themselves to close tightly, barring out the help and inspiration of God, that which God is seeking to impart. So you could say that prayer is to our lives what air-conditioning is to the home, it provides us with freshness and emotional humidity and temperature.

The prime purpose of prayer is to recreate our sense of oneness with God, to expand our consciousness beyond our limited horizon of thought and thus to realize who and what we are.

And startling as it may seem, God does not have what you want. God is what you want; God is the answer. Let your prayer be to claim your spiritual unity with God, and remind yourself that you are His child; get into the self-livingness of this divine process and one with the life and substance which is.

Stop thinking how poor, how sick, how inadequate you are, and remember how wonderful you are. You might even affirm, “I am a wonderful child of God, wonderfully created and wonderfully sustained.” The ancient Sanskrit root word from which our word “prayer” is derived is the word “paloa,” which means literally, “judging oneself to be wondrously made.” Prayer is not what you do to God, but of what you do to yourself, changing your conception about yourself, opening the windows and doors of your soul, letting the light of Spirit flow through you and in you to work its healing and prospering power.

Prayer readies your heart and mind to receive and respond to the activity of the Holy Spirit or the whole Spirit of God within you. It is the affirmative acceptance of the greater good.

So much of prayer has been supplication, begging, petitioning. This implies a primitive concept of God. It makes the assumption that God withholds from some while giving to others. It implies that God can be argued with, bargained with, and reasoned with, that He is impressed with human opinion, that He can be coerced.

Jesus had tremendous power because he always worked in harmony with the indwelling presence of God; his mind and heart were conditioned to let the infinite condition express. Jesus accepted the divine law as the law of his life; he freely used it by speaking the affirmative word. Jesus said, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32), and he had no doubts about the divine will to heal and to prosper. He spoke the affirmative word and accepted the positive answer even before it manifested; he prayed the prayer of affirmation, of mind-conditioning.

We get into a negative or “no” consciousness in which we inhibit the expression of the perfect life and intelligence of Spirit. The affirmation conditions the mind to God-consciousness; it renders us to the activity of God that is ever in us, that ever seeks to lead us to our highest good. An affirmation is saying “yes!” Yes, to health; yes, to prosperity; yes, to harmony. It is giving conscious consent to the great affirmative; God’s ceaseless longing to perfect Himself through His creation.

No matter what the difficulty, as Jesus says, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24) What is right judgment? Emerson answers this in his definition of prayer, “The contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.” No matter what the appearance may be, you can identify with the “I am” at the center of your being. Take the highest thought possible, which is “I am whole, a perfect child of God. I am right now one with God, one with life, one with intelligence, one with supply.” The prayer is to know this, not to tell God to do something, but to know the Truth about yourself and to condition your mind and every fiber of your being to respond to it.

The idea is to evoke the feeling of being or having that which you want or need. Remember, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24) He is saying that you should believe that you see it even before you have it, so that then you will receive. This may seem strange at first, but it is a fundamental law. Through prayer, condition your mind with that feeling, and good thoughts will come forth.

Unless prayer gives you the feeling of health, prosperity, and harmony, then it really hasn’t succeeded. So prayer must involve the stimulation of the feelings. It is “the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” as far as health is concerned, for example, but you must accept it, you must believe it; you must feel your oneness with it. Act as if it were already true and thus your conditioning of mind through prayer breaks down the self-doubt and limitation and false ego, and lets that perfect healing light shine in and through you.

Accept the idea for you that God is the answer, that God is your life, your support, your security, and prepare yourself by opening your mind and heart, conditioning yourself for life through prayer.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

If you’d like to receive “Rich Words,” featuring weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at www.alanrowbotham.com

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Today, Sunday, April 3, is the fourth Sunday in Lent. Lent is the period of time during which we can prepare ourselves for the Easter experience.
 
Here is the message for the fourth Sunday in Lent:
 
 
The Sabbath
 
The Sabbath is the “resting in the Lord,” the time of release and rest while God accomplishes through us His perfect work.
 
Most prayers are lost, unanswered, because we do not keep the Sabbath day holy (whole). Day means a time. When we pray, establishing our oneness with the Power of God within us and everywhere present, then we should relax, rest, until God does His perfect work.
 
As a rule we get up from prayer and meditation and, of ourselves, we try to answer our own prayer. We rush here and there to find people or money or some outer power to fulfill our need.
 
It may be that in such rushing around we get a partial answer to our prayer, but this is not the completion of God and we will find many of our efforts frustrated in the outer world. Most prayers are unanswered because of the prying outer mind of man.
 
Every day is the Sabbath day, so let us learn to keep the High Watch with our good. People of the past have believed this meant physical rest, not touching nor doing any outer labor. But it means much more than this. “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” (Jesus)
 
The Sabbath is part of the individual’s unfoldment. We learn to wait, to silence fears and doubts. We come to a place where we fulfill the following directions: “I pray, I wait, I clear my mind and God does the work.”
 
True Sabbath consciousness is to have fulfilled the Divine Law in both thought and action. This of course includes inner peace, mental relaxation, and outer physical rest which is a great restorative. Recreation is to re-create, change. Let us “cast our burden” of the personal and the outer.
 
We do not own one paltry thing, no matter how much we have collected and saved. The only treasures are days lived; everything else is a universal loan. Our greatest burden is that we need something; our greatest freedom is to know we have it.
 
 
(This series of Lenten messages was first developed by Unity minister Dr. Sue Sikking, founder of Unity-by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, California, author of God Always Says Yes and Seed of the New Age.)
 
 
God is Blessing You, Right Now!
 
Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
 
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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-nine years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com
 
To subscribe for free weekday inspirational quotes, Rich Words, go to www.alanrowbotham.com
 
Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.
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Do you yearn to have a happy and fulfilling new year? Do you desire better things? In a sense, this is proof positive that you most certainly can have that better year. “Desire, or hope,” as Emerson puts it, “is the beginning of its own fulfillment.” That is why we are told, “Before they call I will answer” (Isa. 65:24).  Your very desire to find help, even before you formulate it into a full-blown request, is God’s answer pressing itself out into visibility. As Emilie Cady says, “Desire in the heart is always God tapping at the door of your consciousness with His infinite supply.” But she adds this caveat: “A supply that is forever useless unless there is a demand for it.”

We are forever looking at the circumference of life for that which can only be found in ourselves. You may have already set New Year resolutions and outer goals for 2011. But the great need is to find our oneness, to find a sense of self-realization of inner security, of the “peace that passes all understanding.” The happy new year that we all wish for, and that we wish for one another, and hope will manifest for the world, may well depend upon the degree to which we can follow the guidance of the apostle Paul, “Awake thou that sleepeth, that Christ may shine upon you.” The key is in prayer or meditation.

It was Emerson who said, “Prayer is a study of truth; a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite.” The problem is that we have been taught that we begin with emptiness, and we go forth into the world to find fulfillment. Hence, we are always attempting to find out there that which fulfills us in here. We remember that Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matt. 7:7) But there is obviously much more than is generally realized to the word “ask.”

Without verbalizing, we ask for many things, good and not-so-good. For example, we ask for affection of family and friends simply by giving love; in other words, asking as though we fully expected our love to be requited in kind. We ask for success through our industry and our practice of personal responsibility; we ask for trouble and rejection through our doubts and slovenliness. In our trust and willingness to give aid, we are asking for friends, whereas in our fault-finding and suspicion we are asking for loneliness.

In prayer, asking deals with creating the consciousness, the mental receptivity which makes the results inevitable. You ask God for what you want by getting into the spirit. It is not something God has to do for you; it is what you must do for yourself in order to enable this divine process to do through you and as you that which it is the “ceaseless longing of the Creator to do.”

That is why Jesus would say, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk. 12:32). We may offer conventional prayer for the good we desire, and at the same time be busily expecting through our doubts and fears something quite different. If only we would remind ourselves that our prayers are for the alteration of our consciousness, we would find ourselves pointed in the right direction.

Therefore when in need, we would ask God for guidance and help by placing ourselves in a position to receive; we would work toward that position in consciousness by affirming the truth, declaring that which we desire as already being real right now; give thanks that you have (rather than “will have”) the desires of your heart. As Jesus says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mk. 11:24).

So, affirm the truth, speak the word, and thus get yourself into the spirit and create the condition, the channel, the conduit, through which God’s answer can flow into manifestation. So, whatever you want, ask for it, but ask in the consciousness that creates the conditions that make the results inevitable. Ask in your emotions, in your actions, in your spirit, in affirmation and in the spoken word of truth.

To achieve what you hope and pray for, the need is not to change anything but rather to change the way in which you have been seeing things. Examine the way in which you have been accepting yourself. Suddenly realize that you are what you want to be. You are a successful, harmonious, happy whole creature.

Move forward into the New Year with confidence, with faith, and seek to live the life you have imagined. Release the potential within you, and you will find an entirely new experience. You will have a different consciousness; you will make the very most of all experiences that come, in terms of releasing your own potentiality. And it’s very likely that you will have the best year of your life.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

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This article, Praying for Others, is one that I wrote and published on my blog in March, 2008, as part of a series on Prayer, but I thought it worth reviving and revising a little to bring it to you again for your consideration:

Sometimes we are inclined to try to change one another. We want the other person to become what we would like them to be. We even do that in prayer too. We want to change the other person, to give them our wisdom, and to have them to see it our way.

Whenever I pray for other people, I notice that when a change occurs in me then a change often occurs in the situation I’m praying about. If we are to pray for others we must first pray for ourselves, putting ourselves consciously in God’s presence. When we make that contact within ourselves, within our own hearts, then the situations in our lives are affected in positive ways.

There’s a wonderful story that’s told in three of the gospels. It’s the story about a woman who came pushing through the crowd toward Jesus just to touch the hem of his garment.

Given the crowd around Jesus, many people must have touched him; but he felt the woman’s touch and turned around. He said, “Who touched me?” The woman hid at first; they couldn’t find her. Then she came forward and he told her, “Your faith has made you whole!”

Until that woman touched him Jesus hadn’t been aware of her. He was focused on the consciousness of God’s presence. And out of that consciousness the power came through him to bring about healing in the woman who touched him.

He was a conduit, or contact, for healing.

When we pray for ourselves and feel our oneness with God, we too can be that kind of contact for someone. But the first thing is to pray for ourselves, to put ourselves in a consciousness of God.

Our purpose in prayer is to unify ourselves with God, to become one with God. Then we can be a conduit or contact for others as well. Imagine a wire, a light, and the power. We are like the wire. The wire cannot do anything of itself but it is the contact for the power to come through to bring the light. So my work, and yours, as the “wire,” is to seek to know God’s presence.

As I make that contact, then the power flows through me to bring light into my world, into the situations in my life, and into the lives of others for whom I pray. And those who are in contact with me are touched by the light.

I must first be in a consciousness of oneness with God before any effect is felt, before any power is transferred through me. It is not through the power of my thinking, because there is no power in my thinking; the power is the power of God.

People often talk about how we influence others by our thoughts, and in prayer they try “to send” their thoughts to others. That is a wrong concept of the role of thought, especially the role of thought in prayer. We do not “send” our thoughts to others; there is no power in our thoughts that we send to others to try to influence them.

The power is the power of God; that’s the only thing that can bring about change. Our work in the role of thought is to get ourselves in the right consciousness, in the right place; to elevate our thoughts first. Then we are able to enfold those for whom we pray in the realization of God’s presence.

There is a role of thought, that is for sure, but it is for us to bring about change in ourselves.

Whenever the “hem of the garment” has been touched, whenever that contact has been made, then we know. It is as though God leaves His footprint, and flowers spring up. Someone is healed, or a situation changes, or a poem is written, or a new insight comes. It comes out of the contact we make within ourselves. We come into that place as we begin to take right thought within ourselves, as we reach for God’s presence within.

When I say “reach,” I don’t mean to say we have to “reach out” somewhere. God’s presence is right there within us all the time. And God’s presence is also right there within the other person for whom you are praying.

So we reach inward for God’s presence, and we think of the things that are of God.

The apostle Paul said it in a very appropriate way, recorded in Philippians 4:8:

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” These are the things we are to think about as we raise ourselves into the consciousness of God.

So we build our consciousness first. That’s what thought is for.

Prayer is an act of thought, yes. But more than that, prayer is an act of love. Love frees, love does not bind; love does not possess, love does not say “I wish you to do things this way” or “I want you to do things the way I want you to do them.”

Love doesn’t do that. Love frees you to the law of growth in your own uniqueness.

True prayer is a prayer of the heart, isn’t it? It’s a prayer of love.

In the Buddhist tradition, there are several stories where the savior is represented as a steed that soars across the skies over the ocean of life rescuing shipwrecked sailors.

In one story there are some sailors that have gone on a journey to the Island of Jewel and they have stopped at another island. On this island there is a band of seductresses, and the sailors get caught up with them and stay there.

The problem is that these seductresses are sirens; they are man-eating monsters and consume the sailors.

Every once in a while in the story the steed, which is called Cloud, appears over the island and calls to the sailors to mount upon his back. He flies off and takes them to safety, but they must not look back or else they will fall off.

So Cloud, the steed, does not save the sailors by sending his thoughts to them. He may extend compassion and love to them, but he really saves them by perfecting his own flight.

That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself.”

We must perfect our flight. Then, as we are lifted up, we also lift up others.

If you want to pray for someone, to help them, to heal them, to bless them, then first reach for God’s presence within you knowing that same presence is in the other person.

Realize that God’s perfection is everywhere present, as much in you as in the other person. God’s perfection is there, God’s abundance is there. It is not absent, it’s already present. Get in a consciousness of that perfection. If you wish, see the person in your mind’s eye as enfolded in God’s perfection.

Then feel the person in your heart, in love. Because it’s the love that really makes the connection. And love does its perfect work. It casts out fear. When we are in love, we are one with one another.

I was reading an article by Bill Moyers about a retreat place for people who have cancer. The place is called Commonweal, just north of San Francisco, on the Point Reyes National Seashore.

He told about his experience there. He said that people were coming together and just loving each other, sharing their stories and being recognized as a person. Not as a person who has something wrong with them, but simply as a person.

They loved each other, massaged each other, touched each other, and told each other their stories.

Bill Moyers said there was such a feeling of love there and healings were taking place there, because of the love and caring.

The prayer that heals is the prayer of the heart, the prayer of love.

When we pray from the heart then we are one with the other, and one with God. When we pray with the heart then we are in the “secret place of the Most High.” Only love can enter there, because God is love.

It is the mansion of miracles.

Remember that Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” It is the creative house of life, the creative house of the Spirit within you; it is that secret place of the heart where we are all one and where there are no differences.

So if you want to pray a prayer that will help someone, pray the prayer of the heart, pray the prayer of love.

“In my Father’s house are many mansions.” No one is left out; that’s what Jesus meant.

No one is ever left out of our Father’s heart. When we pray the prayer of the heart, no one is ever left out. No one is shut out in prayer. I never pray only for myself, even when I pray for myself.

Whenever you pray, whether it is for yourself or another, no one is ever shut out. You always lift others. You always make contact, if you pray the prayer of the heart. And something changes. The hem of the garment is touched.

As you lift up your life, you also lift up the lives of others.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend. You may also reproduce and publish this article if you also include this reference box. Thank you!

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Special thanks to those of you who have sent tithes or love offerings for “Spiritual Solutions.” I am very grateful for your generosity.
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“Guidance” is a common word in our day. Everyone seeks some kind of guidance: guidance for children, for adolescents, for marriage relationships, for the businessperson, and so forth. Occasionally, someone might suggest the idea of spiritual or “Divine” guidance.

Unfortunately, that suggestion may be looked upon with distrust, simply because the term “Divine guidance” is usually related to the magical, mystical or psychic. Yet there is an almost instinctive feeling in every person that there is a “Something” beyond personal prejudices, different from the mental state of worry and concern, and that this “Something” can be reached.

But this feeling for the “Something” has often been dealt with on the level of superstition. Thus, many persons look for guidance through a sign or leading, all the way from the flipping of a coin to reading the stars or the numbers, the cards, the tea leaves or the crystal ball, and then on to Indian guides and spirit readings. This is not to put down any of these pseudo-sciences, but rather to point up the fact that involvement in them is a subtle form of self put-down.

If any person evidences, even in a brief showing, some kind of inner direction or direct knowing, it is often identified as ESP or psychic phenomenon or spirit guidance. This is to malign our potential as a spiritual being, and to deny the inherent flow of guidance within us that is just as natural as the instinct of animals. Remember this dynamic statement from the book of Job: “There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty gives him understanding.” So why do we refuse to accept this inner knowing?

Maybe it is that religion has not really dealt with the whole of the person. The dictionary defines “religion” as “divine revelation for human guidance.” But most religions have become exteriorly oriented, dealing with God “out there” or “up there.” We may be told in impassioned sermons that our need is “to find God.” But God is not to be found – for God is not lost. 

It is not God’s hiddenness, but our blindness that is the problem. We live in a state of ceaseless guidance, in a field of Infinite knowingness, but we are blind and deaf to the process. Emerson says, “There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word.”

To find God, to understand God, we need to expand our thoughts to the realization of the omnipresence of God and then know, in the words of former Unity minister and author Eric Butterworth, “The whole of Spirit is present at every point in space at the same time, and in its entirety.” There is no distance between us and God. There is nowhere to go to get guidance or inspiration or creativity. We are in it, all of it, all the time!

Divine guidance, or spiritual guidance or “direct knowing” is the same as getting an immediate answer to prayer in time of need. It is but another way of explaining the work of intuition. The ancient wise ones called these occurrences “illumination.” The mystics called them “showings.” Many call them “leadings.” But again we lose the real idea if we see these things as some kind of special access to the inner secrets of the Universe, or some kind of psychism or divination.

The term “Voice of God” is purely a poetic expression. It is found all through the Bible.   And it has been terribly misleading for many people. The classic instance is Moses’ experience at the burning bush. “God called to him out of the bush: ‘Moses, Moses!’” This was an experience of direct knowing. The Bible writers used highly symbolic language and overstatement, such as describing locusts as big as giants that jumped from hill to hill. So they are saying in this passage about Moses that it was a knowing so clear that it was as if God was actually talking to him.

Remember, “The Father knows even before you ask Him”; “Before they call, I will answer.” This means that God is present – always and in all ways. God knows. God knows in you, for you. Knowing is, and it is at hand. It is now. The way out (the way to escape the difficulties at hand) is at hand.

But this guidance or direct knowing comes into consciousness most easily through a mind that is uncluttered with the known. If you know about a lot of things, it is difficult to know the Truth, which is to know the Knower. A creative mind, or a mind in a creative experience, is so involved in knowing that it lets go of what others know about, even if they know about things that indicate impossibilities.

Most people have preconceived notions which they bring into their prayer time. They have a strong idea of what they want to have happen, and often, even in seeking guidance they are actually looking for “Divine approval” of something they have already determined to do. To have the mind full of preconceived notions, even images and treasure maps representing outlined goals, is to frustrate the process of direct knowing.

The important thing to remember is that wherever you are, God is. The whole of Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is present in its entirety at every point in space at the same time. Spirit is present, as presence. All-knowing is present. The answer to your dilemma is present – here and now. There is nowhere to go, nothing to reach for, and no one to contact and plead with.

Prayer is communion, oneness, a listening. “Be still and know that I am God.” When you know that I AM is God, you humble yourself to listen; you expect to be guided. In childlike faith, you know the Knower within you that is always present.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

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“Summer Heat Calls for Inner Cool!” I could see the headline now, as I worked with my frustration in trying to get someone to come out and fix our air-conditioning. It was the middle of summer and not only was the air inside the house hot, I was pretty hot too.

The promise was that someone would come out and fix it between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., Monday. No one showed up. They said they’d be there Tuesday, between the same times. It was after 4 p.m. before anyone showed up.

Then, after assurances from customer service that we had a manufacturer’s warranty on the A/C unit, the service man tells me the condenser unit needs replacing and there’s no warranty on that.

It wasn’t just air-conditioning I needed by this time, it was inner conditioning! Ever been there? I’m sure you have. Of course, it all got resolved eventually. We got several quotes and now have a brand new condenser unit with a 10-year warranty.

A nice ending touch was that, a couple of days later, we received a lovely flower arrangement by way of the sales person. It sat there sweetly in the middle of our coffee table, quietly reminding me of the need for inner conditioning if you want to be truly cool.

There’s a great little story that points up the same message:

Once upon a time there was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried.

The king looked at all the pictures. But there were only two he really liked, and he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for the peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this painting thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains too. But these mountains were ragged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.

But when the king looked closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest – in perfect peace.

The king chose the second painting as the prize-winning picture of peace. Do you know why?

“Because,” explained the king, “peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. That is the real meaning of peace.”

Would you like to be truly cool and maintain a deep sense of inner peace?

Well, maybe I can help you with some inner conditioning.

Have you ever thought of using a meditation based on the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi? You may recall that the opening line of that famous prayer is, “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.”

The clue to finding peace is in those last two words: “thy peace.”

You can learn how to be a calm center of peace for yourself and an instrument of God’s peace for others. Here’s how:

First take some time, maybe each day for a week, to memorize the Prayer of St. Francis.

Then, having memorized the prayer, when you next settle into a time of quiet meditation, use one line of the prayer at a time and say it very slowly to yourself letting it sink into your consciousness at a deep level:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love,

Where there is injury, pardon,

Where there is doubt, faith,

Where there is despair, hope,

Where there is darkness, light,

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much

Seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying [to self] that we are born to eternal life.

Let this be your form of meditation each day for as long as need be, and until you are feeling a deeper sense of peace within yourself. Then keep it in mind and use it whenever you need it any time in the future.

“If you are at peace,” said Thomas Merton, “then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.”

Yours, in Love and Peace,

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

P.S. If you would like to be on Rev. Alan’s personal mailing list to receive his inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions, you can sign up at http://spiritualsolutionsblog.com/

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