Monday, October 31, 2011

Try Prayer Power.

You are dealing with the most tremendous power in the
world when you pray. The secret of prayer is to find the process
that will most effectively open your mind humbly to
God. Any method through which you can stimulate the
power of God to flow into your mind is legitimate.
An illustration of a scientific use of prayer is the experience
of a man who opened a small business-as he characterized
it, "a little hole in the wall" in New York City years
ago. He had one employee. In a few years they moved into a
larger room and then into extensive quarters. It became a
very successful operation.
This man's method of business as he described it was "to
fill the little hole in the wall with optimistic prayers and
thoughts." He declared that hard work, positive thinking, fair
dealing, right treatment of people, and the proper kind of
praying always get results. This man worked out his own
simple formula for solving his problems through prayer
power. The formula is: (1) PRAYERIZE, (2) PICTURIZE,
(3) ACTUALIZE.
By "prayerize" my friend meant a daily system of creative
prayer. When a problem arose, he talked it over with
God simply and directly in prayer. Moreover, he conceived
of God as being with him in his office, in his home, on the
street, in his automobile, always near by as a partner. He
took seriously the Biblical injunction to "pray without ceasing."
He interpreted it as meaning that he should go about
every day discussing with God in a natural, normal manner
the questions that had to be dealt with. He did not often
kneel to offer his prayers but would, for example, say to
God, "What will I do about this, Lord?" or "Give me a fresh
insight on this, Lord."
The second point in his formula of creative prayer is to
"picturize." The basic factor in physics is force. The basic
factor in psychology is the realizable wish. When either failure
or success is picturized it strongly tends to actualize in
terms equivalent to the mental image pictured.
To assure something worthwhile happening, first pray
about it and test it according to God's will; then print a picture
of it on your mind as happening, holding the picture
firmly in consciousness. Continue to surrender the picture to
God's will-that is to say, put the matter in God's hands-and
follow God's guidance. Work hard and intelligently, thus
doing your part to achieve success. Practice believing and
continue to hold the picture in your thoughts. Do this and
you will be astonished at the strange ways in which the picture
comes to pass. In this manner the picture "actualizes."
That which you have "prayerized" and "picturized" "actualizes"
according to the pattern of your basic realizable wish
when conditioned by invoking God's power upon it, and if,
moreover, you give fully of yourself to its realization.
I have practiced this prayer method and find great power
in it. Others have likewise reported that it released creative
power into their experience.
For example, a woman discovered that her husband was
drifting from her. Theirs had been a happy marriage, but the
wife had become preoccupied in social affairs and the husband
had gotten busy in his work. Before they knew it, the
close, old-time companionship was lost. One day she discovered
his interest in another woman. She became hysterical.
She consulted her minister, who instructed her how to
pray and to "picturize." He also advised her to hold a mental
image of the restoration of the old-time companionship, to
visualize the goodness in her husband, and to picture a restored
harmony between the two of them. She was to hold
this picture with faith.
About this time her husband informed her that he wanted
a divorce. She had conquered hysteria and calmly replied
that she was willing if he wanted it, but suggested a deferral
of the decision: "If at the end of ninety days you still want a
divorce, I will cooperate." He gave her a quizzical look, for
he had expected an outburst.
Night after night he went out, and night after night she sat
at home, but she pictured him in his old chair. She even pictured
him drying the dishes as he did when they were first
married. She visualized the two of them playing golf together
as they once had.
She maintained this picture with steady faith, and one
night there he actually sat in his chair. Occasionally he
would be gone but more and more nights he sat in his chair.
Then one Saturday afternoon he asked, "What do you say to
a game of golf?"
The days went by pleasantly until she realized that the
ninetieth day had arrived, so that evening she said quietly,
"Bill, this is the ninetieth day."
"What do you mean," he asked, puzzled, "the ninetieth
day?"
"Why, don't you remember? We agreed to wait ninety
days to settle that divorce matter and this is the day."
He looked at her for a moment, then hidden behind his
paper turned a page, saying, "Don't be silly. I couldn't possibly
get along without you. Where did you ever get the idea I
was going to leave you?"
I have known many other people who have successfully
applied this technique. When sincerely and intelligently
brought into situations, this has produced such excellent results
that it must be regarded as an extraordinarily efficient
method of prayer. People who take this method seriously and
actually use it get astonishing results.

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