A Formula For Effective Prayer

Here is a formula for true and effective prayer.

The things we need we are to ask for and we are to believe that we receive them. This plumbs the very depths of the metaphysical and psychological law of our being and explains the possibility of an answer to our prayers.

When we pray we are to believe that we have. We are surrounded by a universal law which is creative. It moves from the thought to the thing. Unless there is first an image it cannot move, for there would be nothing for it to move toward. Prayer, which is a mental act, must accept its own answer as an image in mind, before the divine energies can play upon it and make it productive.

As we must plant a seed before we can reap an harvest, so we must believe before our prayers can be answered. Prayer should reach a point of acceptance, an unqualified and undisputed place of agreement. Let us take the

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mental image of our desires to the bosom of the creative life and here make them known by impressing them upon it with positive belief. If we do this our prayers will be answered.

But let us remember that true prayer is always universal. There can be no good to us alone, but only as that good is for all. This does not mean that we are to refrain from asking what we wish for but that we should wish only for that which is good. For instance, it is good to have a home; it is good for all people to have homes while here on earth; it is right to ask for one, but it would not be right to ask for one belonging to another.

If we wish to pray for a home we should take the idea of a house with us into the silence and meditate upon its actual being. We should believe that we have and own a home, but we should leave the idea free to fulfill itself without any definite choosing of how, where, or why. In this way we pray aright and when we so pray, we pray effectively.

God wills us to have everything. As we express life we fulfill God's law of abundance but we do this only as we realize that there is good enough to go around.

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But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Jesus said unto him,

Thou shalt love the Lord thv God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind.

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This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it,

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

MATTHEW -- Twenty-two.