Prayer

by Rev. Robert S. Jungé

"Ask and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." (Luke 11:9,10)

"Prayer is nothing but communication." (AC 3285) Perhaps that is why it is defined as speech with God (AC 2535). Not to God, but with God. It is reciprocal. We ask and the Lord God answers. So we read, "Prayer regarded in itself is speech with God, and some internal view at the time of the matters of the prayer, to which their answers something like an influx into the perception or thought of the mind, so that there is a certain opening of man's interiors toward God; but this with a difference according to the man's state, and according to the essence of the prayer." (AC 2535)

An internal view. An opening of man's interior's towards God. We do not open our interiors towards someone we do not love, nor to someone who does not love us in return. The fullness of prayer expresses our love to the Lord our God, and it is spoken with confidence that His love is there for us. But we do not always feel His love nor do we feel adequate to express our love for Him. So it is indeed true that there is a difference according to our state and according to the essence of the prayer.

At times our hearts are low, our loves have grown cold, and we drift with no drive and no focus. If we will, in the closet of our minds, when the door is shut to all outside intrusions we can turn to the Lord as we can turn to no other. (Matt 6:6) And we have the assurance of Scripture that our Father who seeth in Secret shall reward us openly. Ask and it shall be given unto you.

At other times we may be plagued with doubts. We do not see what we should do. We need to seek answers if we are to have any hope of finding them. And we are assured by doctrine, "Even at this day, everyone who, while reading the Word, approaches the Lord alone, and prays to Him is enlightened in the Word." (D Lord 2:e) If we seek answers we must go to where the Lord speaks; we must go to His Word. When we seek answers in prayer His Word answers. Seek and ye shall find.

And finally there are times in our lives when all the doors seem to be closed. Nobody seems to want any of the things we would like to do. There seems to be no opportunities for what we have to offer. We want to reach out, but everywhere we turn the way seems blocked to our doing anything. We need to knock on the right door and in the right way. We need to knock in prayer, believing that the Lord can and will help us, that He will empower us again. "Knock and it shall be opened unto you."

Those who love and trust the Lord can surely open their hearts to Him. Not all have reached such a state of love, yet He is there for all. So our doctrines teach, "Everyone is allowed to approach the Lord by prayers, and.. He hears every one." (SD 4603m) "For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." (Luke 11:10)

From these strong assurances of Scripture, some might think that all that we need do is ask. But reflect for a moment on the love and trust you feel for a friend or a married partner. Love is not achieved by simply asking for it. It involves cultivation, working together, growing together, communicating and sharing. It involves good times and hard times. Love knows no ending, and can unfold in wonder to all eternity. Its growth and development is an ever-nurturing process, day-by-day, step-by-step.

No, prayer is far more than just asking. The doctrines put it, "Truths with man are what pray, and man is continually in such prayers when he lives according to the truths." (AE 493:3) Prayer is different according to the man's state. The nature of our prayers depends upon the life we are trying to live. "But when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any, that your Father also who is in the heavens may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye shall not forgive, neither will your father who is in the heavens forgive your trespasses. (Mark 11:24-26) Forgiveness, charity, life! The faith which can move mountains, is the faith that makes one with charity (AE 405:53) Jesus said, "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (Matthew 7:7)

God is all knowing, all loving and all powerful. When we say prayer is reciprocal, we can always count on His love, His wisdom and His ability to do all things. When we say

then that prayer is reciprocal, we can count on His side of the communication always being there. But our side? We read, "it is common in all divine worship, that man should first will, desire and pray and the Lord then answer, inform and do; otherwise man does not receive anything Divine." (AR 376)

We must will, desire, and pray. It is our choice. No one can make it for us. Simple observation reveals that we tend to be selfish. We tend to love the things of the world. We are tempted to adultery fraud, revenge, blasphemy and all sorts of evils. Only the Lord God has the power to remove these evils, to put these tendencies to rest. Only He has the power, and we acknowledge that power through prayer. But we also have a responsibility. We have a choice. None of these evils can be removed unless the liberty to think and will their removal were left to man and he from this liberty removed them as of himself. But the teaching continues, "Yet this he cannot do unless he acknowledges the Divine Providence and implores that the work may be done by it." (DP 184)

Imploring, praying, means we recognize that the Lord alone has the power to change our hearts. We simply must do our part. Ask, Seek, Knock. And we only truly ask, seek and knock, if we abide in Him and His words abide in us, if we strive with all our hearts to cease to do evil and learn to do well. Imploring His help, the Lord will always be there. We read, "It is evident that the Divine Providence operates with every man in a thousand hidden ways; and that its unceasing care is to cleanse him because its end is to save him; and that nothing more is incumbent on man than to remove evils in the external man. The rest the Lord provides, if His aid is earnestly implored." (DP 296)

Implicit in prayer then is a truly human relationship to our God. It involves knowing Him and striving to learn to love Him. Because it is a loving relationship, it involves freedom, for love is a gift and cannot be demanded. But it is a relationship to God who is all-knowing and all-powerful as well as all-loving. To talk with Him, is far more awesome than to talk to the most powerful ruler in the world. When we pray we bow in deep humility and awe. The thoughtful who bow before their God, will always seek to ask for those things of which their God will approve. We are instructed, "To ask from the faith of charity is to ask not from self but from the Lord, for whatever any one asks not from self but from the Lord he receives." (AE 411:15) The Lord inspires the heart, defines the heavenly goals, and leads to active uses of service to our neighbors. These are His answers.

Those who pray for themselves against others, pray contrary to the welfare of the human race and their prayers will not be answered. But, "If the man prays from love and faith, and for only heavenly and spiritual things, there then comes forth in the prayer something like a revelation (which is manifested in the affection of him that prays) as to hope, consolation, or a certain inward joy." (AC 2535) How blessed is a life that is filled with hope, consolation and inward joy!

We may not always receive right away even those good things for which we pray. But when it is for our good we will obtain them afterwards. (See SD 3538) And it is also true that the Lord knows of what we have need even before we ask. But for the sake of our freedom the Lord leads us to ask, seek and knock. The Lord's knowledge, power and love are all directed towards our free and willing response. He will not compel us because it is contrary to His very nature, contrary to His love. And prayer is such a wonderful and precious thing, because at its heart it is an expression of love and sharing of love. "When a man is in genuine worship, then the Lord flows into the goods and truths which are with him, and raises them to Himself, and with them the man, in so far and in such a manner as he is in them. This elevation does not appear to the man unless he is in the genuine affection of truth and good, and in the knowledge, acknowledgment, and faith that everything good comes from above, from the Lord." (AC 10299)

Prayer may be supplication for help in times of trouble. It may cry out for mercy though in calmer moments we know that the Lord is always merciful. Or on the other hand prayer may express simple gratitude for the Lord leading and for His blessings. In either case it acknowledges the Divine and infinite power of our Lord.

Prayer can bring us close to the Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. And the wonder is that as we draw closer to Him, He draws us closer to each other. Every day we have the opportunity to talk with our God and if we ask in the right way and for the right things, He will surely answer.

"Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near; Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (Is 55:6-7)

* * * * *

These things are called uses, because through man they have relation to the Lord; nevertheless, they must not be said to be uses from man for the Lord's sake, but from the Lord for man's sake, inasmuch as in the Lord all uses are infinitely one, but in man there are no uses except from the Lord; for man cannot do good from himself, but only from the Lord, and good is what is called use. The essence of spiritual love is doing good to others not for the sake of self but for the sake of others; infinitely more is this the essence of Divine love. It is like the love of parents for their children, in that parents do good to their children from love, not for their own sake but for their children's sake. This is especially manifest in a mother's love for her offspring. Because the Lord is to be adored, worshiped and glorified, He is supposed to love adoration, worship, and glory for His own sake; but He loves these for man's sake, because by means of them man comes into a state in which the Divine can flow in and be perceived; since by means of them man puts away that which is his own, which hinders influx and reception, for what is man's own which is self love, hardens the heart and shuts it up. This is removed by man's acknowledging that from himself comes nothing but evil and from the Lord nothing but good; from this acknowledgment there is a softening of the heart and humiliation, out of which flows forth adoration and worship. From all this it follows that the use which the Lord performs for Himself through man is that man may be able to do good from love, and since this is the Lord's love, its reception is the enjoyment of His love. Therefore let no one believe that the Lord is with those who merely worship Him, He is with those who do His commandments, thus who perform uses; with such He has His abode, but not with the former." (DLW 335)

"These essentials of the Divine Love were the cause of the creation of the universe, and are the cause of its preservation. That these three essentials were the cause of creation can be clearly seen by a careful investigation of them. That the first, which is to love others outside of oneself, was a cause, is seen in the universe in that it is outside of God, as the world is outside of the sun, and that He is thus able to extend His love to it, and exercise His love upon it, and thus rest in it. So we read that after God had' created the heavens and the earth He rested, and that this was why the Sabbath day was instituted (Gen 2:2,3) That the second essential, which is a desire to be one with others, was also a cause, is seen in the creation of man in the image and likeness: of God; which means that man was made a form for receiving love and wisdom from God, thus a being with whom God could unite Himself, and also for man's sake with each and all things in the universe, which are nothing but means; for conjunction with a final cause is also conjunction with mediate causes. That all things were created for the sake of man is plain also from the Book of Creation, or (Gen 1:28-39) That the third essential, which is' to render others blessed from oneself, is a cause, is seen in the angelic heaven,` which is provided for every man who receives the Lord of God, and in which the blessedness of all comes from God alone. These three essentials of the love of God are also the cause of the preservation of the universe, since preservation is perpetual creation, as subsistence is perpetual existence; and the Divine love is the same from eternity to eternity, that is, such as it was in creating the world, such it is and continues to be in the world when created. (47) From these things when rightly understood it can be seen that the universe is a coherent work from first things to last, because it is a work that includes ends, causes, and effects in an indissoluble connection. And because in every love there is an end, in all wisdom there is a promotion of an end by means of mediate causes, and through these causes effects, which are uses, are attained, it follows that the universe is -a work that includes Divine love, Divine wisdom and uses, and is thus in every respect a work coherent from things first to last. That the universe consists of perpetual uses, brought forth by wisdom but initiated by love, every wise man can observe as in a mirror, as soon as he acquires a general conception of the creation of the universe, and from that observes the particulars; for particulars adapt themselves to their own general, and the general arranges them in a form in which they are in harmony..." (TCR 46-47)

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