Prayer, and fixing things

         The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
                   —James 5.16

God is not a fix-it man.
God is not a guy
who (sometimes) does what we ask
(though clearly not always).
God is love. Love is the only power God has.
Love doesn’t fix things.
Love liberates, blesses, connects, accompanies.
Love sees, honors, and gives itself—gives the giver—
to the beloved.
But love doesn’t solve problems, get jobs, end wars,
cure cancer, or rescue people from danger.

Praying isn’t asking for stuff, even very good stuff.
It’s paying attention to God.
We hold our hopes, fears and desires
in the light of God’s love, so, yes, we say what we want.
But we listen more deeply to what we really want,
and what we want more than that.
And mostly we listen for what God wants—
what God is already doing,
here even in our unmet needs, our “unanswered” prayers.

Love is an energy like electricity, a force field like gravity.
When we give ourselves to God
we tune ourselves to love,
we harmonize with the oneness of all things
(we are one in the Spirit),
we add our love to God’s.
We increase the power of love in the world.
That doesn’t fix things. But it changes them.

The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective
because it puts us in tune with love,
so miracles can happen, even if just in us.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net

September 20, 2021

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