Article March 13, 1995 Issue

Are we benefited by prayer?

Jack V. Smith

What is prayer really? Is it falling down on bended knee all hours of the day? We learn from Christ Jesus' instructions in the Bible that effective prayer is going into our "closet"—our spiritual consciousness—shutting the door against all materiality or sensuousness, and communing one on one with our Father-Mother God (see Matt. 6:6). And we can do that anywhere: in the shower, on a bus, in a store, or at work. No matter where we are or what time it is, we can always pray.

Prayer is not asking God for things—a bigger house, a better position at work, or a raise—because God, being Spirit, doesn't know anything about matter. But as we strive to know and understand God's omnipotence and omnipresence, His purity and absolute love for all of His spiritual ideas, we better understand our relation to Him. All God is or has is ours by reflection as His perfect image and likeness. So it is natural for us to express intelligence, joy, purity, goodness. These spiritual qualities affect our human experience because they are the essence—the reality—of our being. As we pray with true, unselfish motives, God opens the way and gives us what we need.

Sometimes a false, negative thought might come to us suggesting that we are sick or useless or depressed. Like sentries standing guard, we have to watch what we allow into our thinking, because we tend to manifest in our bodies what we accept in thought. If we seem to suffer from low self-esteem, we can rise above it with the knowledge that we express God's power, presence, and purity. As we strive each day to love and obey the Ten Commandments, we are better able to express God, to live as His offspring.

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