Do your prayers get complicated, overly wordy, lost in metaphysical jargon?
There is no rule for what a prayer should look like, but the following short quote gave me much to think about.
The fewer the words,
the better the prayer.
~ Martin Luther
I don’t believe that prayers should always be short or of few words. My take-away from this quote is that prayer needs to get to the point. What is the truth that heals? It’s not a lot of words that heal. It’s not flowery eloquent descriptions of God that reform the sinner. It’s a specific spiritual truth that meets the immediate need that is required.
I remember a case involving a failing kidney. It was an emergency call from a hospital operating room. My prayer treatment was short and simple: “There is no dying Life. There is no dying kidney.” That was it. I was done. It brought profound peace to my thought about the case, and I felt the need was met. Hours later I got word that the operation was cancelled and the patient was out of the operating room soon to be sent home.
A specific truth that meets the need can often be summed up in a few zinger words that cut to the real issue at hand.
It is an on-going prayer of mine to do a better job of this! How about you?
Great reminder to “keep it simple.” One of my favorite short prayers is this one verse prayer from Psalms 119:9 — “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”
Thank you Evan, I love your way with words, your phrase, “a few zinger words” used like a laser-beam to cut through all the crap mortal mind would suggest.
This brings to mind a healing Jill Gooding shared one time. I think it was in one her articles, she simply used the word “No”, “No”. She had fallen off a pile of logs and cracked a rib. Every pang of discomfort was answered with the word, “No” which means, in saying ‘no’ to error, you are simultaneously saying ‘Yes’ to truth and she found her freedom and healing. It is and can be that simple. “No” to error, “Yes” to truth. Thanks for reminding me/us of the poignancy of this simplicity. We love you..happy weekend.
Just about a couple hours ago I was healed of a sudden fear of breathing that my friend once told me she was having. She just passed on, that kindled the fear presented to my thoughts. Our friendship had been so sisterly that I couldn’t depart from the memories of it. What broke the mesmerism was this still small voice “I love my family”. Then as I was reading my Bible Lesson on Life, ‘personal attachment’ came to me and so I read and prayed The Rule for Motives and Act from our Church Manual page 40 by our beloved Leader Mary Baker Eddy.
As I was reading your blog I was so amazed by your short healing prayer but I was reminded never to envy such progress but instead be grateful. Then came back to thought my four words prayer which was very effective. Now I am learning that short effective prayers are not from us but from Mind, divine Love as we keep practicing listening to God.
God–that word understood is enough to bring healing to any situation. Or you can get wordy and think through: GOD IS! That two word phrase is a law of annihilation to anything unlike God. It establishes in thought the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, good. I love this idea, Evan, and the healing of the kidney, well, that’s just awesome! What cannot God (and a listening practitioner) do?
And in addition to the above, thanks again Evan for providing this opportunity page to inspire us as well as to share our healing experiences too.
Wow! Thank you so much! These ideas you shared are making all the difference in the world for my prayers, starting right now!
“For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.” After telling a practitoner all my symptoms, she simply said, “I don’t believe it.” All the symptoms immediately vanished. Thanks Evan for the reminder.
Yes Evan, when I was new to C/S, I thought that a whole wordy prayer was necessary to make it come out successfully, but I learned that only the specifics of the problem prayed for, must be thought. My grandson, now only 7 years old, has Autism. I posted this on the C/S Website “Community Discussion Group.” Asking How I, his Grandfather, could pray for him. Some one came up with the simple phrase; “He is beAUtiful.” Stress put on the AU, as in Autism. It’s not healed as yet, but there is improvement in the special school he is going to. I have to also say this, that many Christian Scientists think that C/S is a quick fix, and if their prayers are not answered, they quit and leave the religion altogether. Doing this is a big mistake for it is giving in to evil, and this is one thing you should not want to do.
Thank you. I will find this very useful in my daily prayers and mental actions.
Thank you again.
Thanks Evan,
I feel there can never be too much said about prayer, something I feel isn’t taught well enough. We get a lot of the “what” of truth and healing, not enuf of the “how”. I like the 7:15 a.m. Anonymous comment that “short effective prayers are not from us but from Mind, divine Love as we keep practicing listening to God.”
Too often we think if we just do what someone else did, the healing will come, as some thought would happen by repeating the Bible verse that brought Mrs. Eddy’s initial healing. I think it’s what comes to one, to us from staying fully aligned with God, all the time, or almost all.
Would that healing practitioners everywhere helped us see that. There’re no formulas. No “rules”. I’m too slowly getting that, but finally beginning to.
Sancy