POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – THE Connection with THEE Connection

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How many times have you felt truly prepared for a situation? Many times, we are only ½ prepared or less. Become pre-prayed for every situation.

It that is actually a kind of a secret mystery, but the message is simple and yet profound at the same time.

The secret is that you and I are wondrously made in the image and likeness of God; we are one with God. We have known this for a long time, and yet honestly, do we really know it, and live our lives as if we really knew it?

The message, knowing our oneness, and being pre-prayed every single day.

Prayer is a very wondrous thing. Prayer is a mysterious process. If anything, done correctly, it strips away from us our ignorance, takes away our arrogance, and reveals what is already there – something wondrously made.

The great world-class skeptic, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “Lots of people pray for me, and I have never been the worse for it.” He went on to say, “The only valid argument against the practice of prayer is that God knows his own business without my prompting.”

The traditional way we hold prayer is that we are going to somehow convince God to do things better … particularly better for us. In exchange for some kind of promise we make, we expect a miracle. “God, if you will help me win this golf tournament, I will pray every day and night for the rest of my life,” as if such a statement could in any way move or influence God.

That is not the kind of prayer I am talking about, the kind of prayer I am talking about this morning is the kind of prayer that is a prayer of understanding, of deeper principle and knowledge. The kind of prayer I am speaking about is prayer that moves God power in us, in the way electricity moves when a connection is made. If we allow the connection to be made and the electricity to flow, the lamp will light up, and we will have light.

True prayer makes the connection – ourselves – with God – so Divine electricity can flow and there is greater light in our lives. This is the true purpose of prayer: to make THE connection with THEE connection.

This is not the traditional way we have of understanding prayer. You may have heard the old story about the ship out at sea that was in trouble.

The winds were blowing, the sea was flying high, and the ship was being tossed about. A woman found the captain and said to him, “Sir, are we in serious trouble?”

He looked at her and said, “Ma’am, I must tell you the truth. Now would be a good time for us to all think of God and to pray.”

She looked straight at him and said, “Oh my God, has it come to that?”

Prayer, as a last resort is a traditional idea. We MUST think of prayer FIRST not last. We must think of prayer ahead of the need.

We may have ideas of prayer as beseeching or begging, and we also have a kind of prayer that bargains with God; it is actually manipulative. “I will do something for God, and God will do something for me.”

What about the kind of prayer that moves God power through us? What about the kind of prayer that gives us the power to live our lives better, happier, more fully, with all the Divine resources within us directly in our lives?

Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have told the story of chopping down a tree with an ax. He said: “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first six hours sharpening my ax.” He went on to say that most people would spend the entire eight hours hacking with a dull ax, but he would rather have a sharp ax.

Prayer is very much like sharpening our ax. It is spending the time (typically in the morning before the day begins) to sharpen the ax; to raise our consciousness and have a connection with God so that no matter what happens throughout that day, we are better equipped to handle it.

When most of us get up in the morning, our minds fill with all the things we have to do during the day. We do not feel we have time to pray or meditate. We are filled with the need to get on with chopping all that wood. Don’t you feel called to chop at the wood of your life? We do not take the time to sharpen our ax.

There is something about being in this life that causes this to happen to us. But sharpening our ax, taking the opportunity to pray, actually lends a focus and a concentration to our lives. A Divine connection is made, and a great power begins to flow through us. Our minds get clearer, and we are able to function better, just like a sharp ax functions better than a dull one. As we are pre-prayed anxiety lowers and stress decreases. We are able to function at a much higher rate than the human body and human mind working alone.

When things happen in our lives that bring a certain degree of stress or strain, the experience of prayer can lend a degree of peace and serenity to our experiences.

Martin Luther put it this way: “I have so much to do today; I will need to spend another hour on my knees.” Basically, that is the point we are speaking of here.

Author Eric Butterworth uses the image of a radio frequency to describe prayer. It is a particularly good and useful image.

A simple example to show how God is everywhere present is as follows. God is like a radio frequency. In other words, Divine energy is filling this room just as do our radio frequencies. We cannot really hear the radio waves, but they are in there, permeating the air. In order to hear them, we need a receiver. We are the receivers of God’s Divine energy when we sit down to meditate and to pray.

To hear a particular frequency, we have to tune to a frequency. Seven hundred and fifty kilocycles cannot be heard unless you tune your frequency to 750 kilocycles. Then the voice or music is loud and clear. If you move over to 748 or 749 and you will get static. You have to tune yourself. Author Eric Butterworth said, “We have to be in tune with the Infinite. We have to tune ourselves to be receptive and to hear. We can do it. And when we do it, we are empowered with an experience of our own connectedness to God.”

A Holy man was once asked: “How do you maintain your serenity and peace in the face of all the pressures of your life?” He replied, “I never leave my place of meditation.” He did not mean he sat in his meditation hut all day long, because he had a busy monastery to run. He was terribly busy. What he meant was that his inner experience of meditation, which he found in his time of going within in prayer, was carried within him throughout his day.

If the truth be told, the real purpose of prayer and meditation is not the peace, serenity, or contact we make while we are sitting there with our eyes closed. The real purpose begins when we get up, open our eyes, and go out into our day. That is when we express the fruits of our meditation.

Our prayer becomes a living thing that fills our lives and enriches other’s lives because we are pre-prayed first. This is when prayer begins to be true prayer.

Dr. Alexis Carroll said: “Prayer is not only worship. It is an invisible emanation of a human’s spirit – the most powerful form of energy that can be generated. The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. As a physician, I have seen men and women, after all other therapy has failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the supreme effort of prayer. It is the only power of nature. Prayer is the source of luminous and self-generating energy.”

Prayer gives us the ability to counteract the natural flow of our senses. Do you know what I mean? Our bodily senses (our five senses) naturally pull us toward this world – to what Jesus called “the appearances.” This is why when we wake up in the mornings our minds leap to all the things, we have to do that day. We are called to begin to do them. This is why it is so easy to judge in ways like: When it rains, it must be a bad day.

Or when things do not turn out the way we think they should, we get depressed. It is because our senses are so called into the natural world. Then we judge by the appearances.

Prayer is the power to counteract that pull. Prayer gives us the capacity to go within and stay within the truth of our being.

Fortunately, we can give ourselves this experience any time we wish to.

We can give ourselves the opportunity to pray. It is the great gift, and we can open it at any time. Maybe that is why as humans we do not do it more often – because it is so easy, because it is always there, because it is obvious. It is always with us and perhaps we take it for granted.

Maybe it is hidden like the trees with the forest. We do not see it, because it is right in front of our faces. That power to be ourselves, the power to liberate the energy within us, the power to make that Divine connection with God is always with us. Yet, we somehow overlook it, time and time again.

A man tells this story, “When I was a teenager, I was given a watch that had to be wound by hand. It was a high-quality watch, but one day it actually did break down. I decided I would try to get it fixed, so I took it to a jeweler I knew. He looked at it and he was extremely impressed. He told me that this was a very good watch. He said he would fix it, but that I needed to take better care of it. I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Always wind this watch early in the morning because it will help the watch deal with the stresses of the day. It will last longer, and it will be a better watch.”

Naturally, he said, “I had gleaned another meaning from this statement, and I have never forgotten what he told me – not just about the watch, but also about the inner-winding of ourselves.”

When we spend time in prayer and meditation, we are better able to withstand the stresses of the day. We are fundamentally better people for doing that.

There is another powerful meaning to prayer, which is illustrated by this story.

The lover knocked on the door of his beloved. “Who knocks?” said the beloved from within.

“It is I,” said the lover.

His beloved replied, “Go away. This home will not hold you and me.”

The rejected lover went away into the desert. There he meditated for months on end, pondering the words of his beloved. Finally, he returned to the door again. “Who knocks?”

“It is you.” And the door was immediately opened.

You see, it is not really God and you, or God and me. It is just God. That is the secret to opening that inner door; it is just God. God is manifested surrounding you, and through you. There really is no separation between God and you. You are with God this VERY MOMENT.

“God HAS MADE KNOWN TO US in all wisdom and insight the mystery of God’s will.” Ephesians 1:9

God is our life. God is our intelligence. God is our substance. God is our health. Nothing can be added unto us. Everything is already within us, expressing outward. Prayer is simply the recognition of this truth.

How important is prayer? Simply to recognize the truth about who we are is pretty important to me. It is important to have a conscious awareness of our being.

One of the highest levels of prayer is understood by the word from which our word for prayer came. It is a Sanskrit word “Palal,” which means literally “Judging oneself as wondrously made.” What a beautiful and powerful understanding! There is that recognition, a conscious awareness, of which we really are, that comes from prayer.

Does not this change everything? When we are tempted to focus on our lack, to come from a position of powerlessness, and to beg this imagined being in the sky for something, we can stop. Instead, we can truly pray. We can turn to God and do it until we begin to feel the stirring of Spirit within us and we begin to understand who we are. We are not pitiful creatures begging some supreme being for some pittance.

We are children of God.

The Difference

I got up early one morning
And rushed right into my day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I did not have time to pray.

Problems tumbled about me
And heavier came each task.
“Why doesn’t God help me?” I wondered.
And God answered, “You didn’t ask.”

I wanted to see joy and beauty
But the day toiled gray and bleak.
I wondered why God didn’t show me
But God said, “You didn’t seek.”

I tried to come into God’s presence.
I used all the keys in my lock.
God gently and lovingly chided me,
“My child, you didn’t knock.”

So, I woke up early this morning
And paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I had to take time to pray.

The end of a simple message, commit to praying FIRST everyday.

Wind your inner watch FIRST – Be Pre-Prayed!

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION________________

The harmony of the beloved hymn that we all recall, resounds the truth –

Holy, holy, holy … Lord God Almighty.

We now go to God in prayer.

Feel the chair supporting you. Feel your body sink deeply into the soft cushions. Feel your feet inside your shoes as they touch the floor. Sit up as straight as it is comfortable for you. Raise your head up high. Feel your spine lengthen and straighten as you do so.

Feel God is supporting you in the same way uplifting you, and your life.

Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Take another. Breathe it in, deeply and let it out, slowly. Follow your breath, in and out. Peace, be still. Peace, be still.

As you breathe in, deeply and let it out, slowly, know your connectedness with God.

Say silently to yourself in prayer: God is with me.

With the in-breath say, “God goes ahead of me preparing my way of good.”

With the out-breath say “God is with me.”

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Let the Presence and experience of God’s holiness permeate you from this moment on throughout the day. May the holiness of God come together and touch you, completely, missing nothing.

In the silence of prayer you become still and realize that the love of God is flowing throughout your being. You recognize Divine love as the one true source of all that you will ever need. You know that as Divine love works through you, it will bring harmony to every circumstance in your life.

Let us sit now in the silence of prayer and meditate in this way, breathing in, deeply, breathing out, slowly, and repeating silently: God is with me. With the in-breath say, “God goes ahead of me preparing my way of good,” and with the out-breath say, “God is with me.”

Do this now in the silence of prayer …

We are filled with the whole, complete Spirit of God’s help.

We give thanks to God for Divine guidance; we are grateful that it is available to us at all times. Wisdom and good judgment are ours to be experienced when we follow the inspiration we’ve received from God.

We know that we are being Divinely directed path that will lead us to the greatest happiness and success.

For this experience and for the presence of the Presence, we are grateful.

In Jesus Christ’s name

And so it is … Amen.

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