Morning Prayer 26/100. No longer praying for….
Pray rain
Earlier this week, I stopped praying for.
In my morning meditation Tuesday, I was led to realize that if I pray for something, I affirm lack of something.
I am praying to fill an emptiness with whatever I am praying for, be it health or prosperity or love or relationship strength or security or peace or anything.
Came as a shock. As a Prayer Chaplain for several years, I’d gotten really comfortable asking, “Is there something you would like us to pray for?” Often, I don’t have to ask. The familiarity and strength of the Prayer Chaplain program at Unity Church of the Hills frequently has people just ask us to pray for something.
But strong was the message that praying for what one doesn’t have limits the praying to what isn’t, to what is wanted (and so isn’t present).
Somehow (and I think I know how) I was led to realize that praying is so much more than words, than asking. All at once scores of ways-to-pray words literally popped in my mind. Let’s call them “synonyms for ‘pray'”. They’re all verbs. They’re all ways of expressing, affirming, manifesting the truth our hearts and minds know is real.
Here are just a sampling:
dance praise nudge revel multiply laugh hum cheer define motivate
As I read several stories of the drought in Western States and the resulting wildfires and heard that Texas is quickly returning to drought status, my first thought was to pray for rain.
Fortunately and suddenly (again, I’m pretty sure how), I remembered not to pray for. Instead I could (and did)
dance rain praise rain nudge rain revel rain multiply rain laugh rain hum rain cheer rain define rain motivate rain
That rain — those rains — are real, not merely what I want (don’t have).
No, I didn’t literally do a rain dance or count the drops and multiply them by a larger number. I could do that. I could sing and laugh and run and shout the truth of my praying.
Or I can simply drop the “for”. Instead of “I pray for rain” I pray rain. Praying is nudging. I can pray rain and praying is laughing.
Good Friend God,
how wonderful to know I need not “pray for”
because asking for what I haven’t
only affirms that I haven’t.
Thank you for letting me know
the unlimited ways to pray, the infinite
actions that are actually praying
for they share energy, meaning, intention with you.
Whatever these actions may be
they express my concentration
on the focus of my prayer, whatever it may be.
I keep in God-mind
that as I pray thanks, “pray” means
so many ways I share my gratitude with you.
And as I pray prosperity, I affirm its presence
in so many ways in my being.
And as I pray good health, I sing its power
now and at any time.
And so it is. Amen.
Love and Blessings,
08/20/2015
In: Affirmation, Change, Intention, Prayer, Praying · Tagged with: Affirmations, Prayer, praying, spiritual simplicity
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