The spiritual resources which were available to Jesus are open to us on the same terms. We, too, can be conscious of God’s presence; we can listen to his voice and share our problems with him; we can gain insight and love and courage from him. We, too, can be a brother to man; going about doing good; sharing, healing, restoring. Self-centered people do not often possess great spiritual power. Preoccupation with one’s own comfort and pleasure is a primary explanation of spiritual barrenness. Prayer often lacks vitality because an individual is not conscious of anything really worth praying for. Not until man has caught sight of the desperate need of some other person and realizes his own inability to relieve this need is he likely to find spiritual reality.
Within the deep places of the heart, a flame kindles that throws a searching light into our true character. We see our selfishness, our silly pride, our greed and our baseless fears silhouetted against the radiant background of Christ’s life and thought. Comes then repentance, humility, and the beginning of the journey of the soul toward full-orbed personality. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious assembly of body, mind, and spirit which transforms weakness and confusion into unshakable strength. Prayer, like radium, is thus the one source of luminous, self-generating energy.
Such prayer is not begging God for this thing or that. It is not an easy way of cajoling a cosmic errand boy into giving us money and gadgets to make life easy. It is not about asking for things. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” was the way Jesus put it (Matthew 6:33).
But how? Use prayer as a supreme opportunity for the soul’s communion with the Creator and Source of all energy, all beauty and all power. When we pray, we link ourselves with the inexhaustible motive power that spins the universe. But we do not pray enough. Epictetus said, “think of God more often than you breathe”. The apostle Paul said to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). And Jesus taught that, “…men ought always to pray” (Luke 18:1).
True prayer is constant communion with God. In order to mold character and personality, prayer must become a habit.
James 5:13-15, “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let thempray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.”