Why Pray?

This Sunday, I will begin a three-week series of lessons on prayer. I chose to do a series on prayer now as a prelude to Unity’s World Day of Prayer (WDOP) coming up on Thursday, September 10 and in honor of the 125^th anniversary of Silent Unity.

I remember the first prayer I learned. Perhaps you learned the same one: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take,” which continued with, “Dear God, bless Momma and Daddy…” followed by a list of others, including siblings, grandparents and pets.

I was taught to pray to a God somewhere “out there” who had the power to bless or not bless – and, most horrifyingly, to grant me an eternal home in heaven or condemn me to hell. I learned to pray out of a sense of obligation and fear. If I did not pray, I would surely roast in hell for eternity!

Even after I began studying New Thought philosophy, it took me a while to embrace the concept that there is no distant God with a human-like personality somewhere listening to my prayers and considering whether to answer them or not. I was a bit confused at first. Like others, I asked the questions, “If there is no God out there, then to whom or to what do I pray?” and “If there is no God to bless me or save me from eternal damnation, or grant my requests, then why pray at all?”

Charles Fillmore, the co-founder of Unity, answers those questions in The Omnipotence of Prayer. He says,

“[Prayer is necessary] in order that the creative law of the Word may be fulfilled. It is man’s office under the divine law to bring into manifestation that which has already been created by the unmanifest.”

Our role is to bring into form that which is already complete in the Mind of God, awaiting our acceptance of it. We fulfill that function by entering into the consciousness of prayer, feeling the realization of the prayer, and by speaking words of Truth.

Mr. Fillmore says further, “If in thinking about God we locate Him in a faraway heaven and direct our thoughts outward in the hope of reaching Him, all our force will be driven from us to that imaginary place, and we shall become devitalized.”

With this understanding, we can see that if we direct our prayer to God somewhere “out there” when we pray, we separate ourselves from the power of God that is acting within us. Instead of speaking to God in prayer, we must embrace the power of God within us and speak words of Truth from a place of conscious connection in the Mind of God. Through concentration and meditation, we achieve conscious connection before we speak the word. Then the word we speak in prayer is, as Fillmore says, “an affirmation of that which is in Being.” We are not asking God for anything in prayer; we are simply accepting the manifestation of the good that is already present in God.

Unity minister and author, Eric Butterworth, says in The Universe is Calling,

“Don’t ask…claim your good. Affirm the truth, God, the whole God-mind, is ever present. God is always centered in you. You need to become centered in God.”

Prayer is the method by which you and I fulfill our part in the creative process.

The fourth of the five basic Unity principles says, “Prayer is creative thinking that heightens the connection with God-Mind and therefore brings forth wisdom, healing, prosperity and everything good.” That is the powerful role prayer plays in our lives and in the life of our planet.

If you would like to learn more about the power of prayer from a Unity perspective, please join us on Sunday mornings at 10:00 for my three-part series beginning this Sunday, September 6.

In recognition of WDOP we will hold a 12-hour prayer vigil beginning at 6:00 a.m. followed by a prayer service at 7:00 p.m. Our service, entitled A World of Prayers, will feature prayers from many faith traditions around the world in honor of this year’s WDOP theme, Pray Up Your Life, Pray Up The World.