Effectual Prayer

"The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" (James 5:16). We know that when we ask God to give us our daily bread that He is more than willing to give us all that we need.

Our real need is greater awareness of Divinity in ourselves and others. In other words, instead of telling God how big our mountains are, we need to tell our mountains how big our God is. I've heard this put many ways, but one of my favorites is that instead of "surviving the storm, we dance in the rain."

It is really all about perception. For instance when my daughter had her motorcycle accident, of course I prayed for her healing, but an added benefit which occurred is my increased awareness of the preciousness of life. Even though she still has some discomfort from the accident, she is very thankful for the empathy she developed for other people who have injuries or illness. When I saw all that she was willing to do to regain use of her legs, I began to affirm my own life by wanting to take care of my health. Both Frank and I woke up to the idea that we could exercise and eat right to take care of ourselves more and have a better quality of life.

After awhile, we lost focus but then lately regained it again as we watched a dear friend struggle with cancer. The best way to handle life's challenges in my opinion is to "stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead" as Emmet Fox suggests.

He calls the sense of separation from God a major tragedy of the human experience. Through illness and injury, sometimes we realize that this could happen to any one of us, and we realize that it is essential to stay aware and close to our Creator and have a mindset that allows faith and trust in keep us from worry. We can use our positive imagination to visualize a wonderful outcome to any circumstance we encounter.

If we believe that that we are blessed and that all things work together for good, we can not help but feel relief that a Higher Power has it all under control. God bless.

Light and Love,
Patty