Can you share more hints about prayer?
Yes. How might we describe intercessory prayer? Intercessory prayer claims to convey an effect at-a-distance. Part of the claim is, upon urging in prayer, God may intercede in a situation. IP is short for intercessory prayer.
The following are five hints about prayer.
Prayer on the quality spectrum
1. There is a Spectrum for Quality Prayer.
Bruce Klingbeil often brought out the proportion or proportionality of the Divine to the human ego bringing forth effects from prayers and intentions. The following expands on the meaning of the word proportions.
Prayers flow on a sliding scale of having a lack of Quality to having Quality and virtue. A quick view is the following.
On the bottom of the scale, we tend to pray to change a situation to become the way we want or we ask for material possessions we want to own.
On the top of the scale, prayers of Divine Love affirm and support the prime directive of Quality and innate identity to bring forth the true identity behind an organism or situation.
Apparently, there is a spectrum of prayer. Here is a breakdown of the sliding scale of the Quality of prayer.
The bottom of the prayer scale might look like prayers used to wish for a sports team to win over another team or for a boss to be fired or for someone to leave a boyfriend or girlfriend for you. On this bottom level of the scale, in extreme cases, someone could say prayers that are infused with non quality thoughts to ruin someone's life. (This level of prayer shows a lack of Quality and no holy motive in thought.)
Sliding up to the middle of the prayer scale, an improved prayer could be from being a better listener, being kinder to people, or trying to be less selfish. (This middle level of the scale shows some Quality improvement of thought.)
Sliding up higher on the scale is compassionate prayer that seeks healing that includes forgiveness for someone. Compassionate prayer seeks to "love your neighbor as yourself." {Leviticus 19:18.} God has a surgical procedure for healing hurt and bad actions. It's forgiveness. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." {Psalm 103:12, New International Version.}
Forgiveness is for whom first? Forgiveness is for the forgiver foremost. Forgiveness sets the forgiver free from his past, so he who forgives can move forward to forgive others. Forgiveness is spiritual self-love. Forgiving someone else frees us from enslavement to that someone or situation that made us bitter or when we hurt someone. Those emotional blocks stop us from moving forward. Occasionally when you forgive people, you disarm them.
Is the Judeo-Christian concept of sacrifice involved in personal forgiveness? Sacrifice can be part of forgiveness when a person gives up, let's go, sacrifices his grudge, anger, selfish attitude, and his bias against someone or situation.
The pure love for yourself is to love your spiritual identity more than your material self. The love for your spiritual identity is the love for you as an image and likeness of Spirit over the love for you as an Adam or Eve made of matter. {James 2:8.} Christ Jesus appears to say that it is the same process for a sin to be forgiven as it is for a problem to be healed. {Mark 2:9.} (Compassionate prayer conveys healing adjustments through Love with a capital L, Quality, virtue, and forgiveness emerging in your thought.)
Sliding to the top of the scale, you might say that the highest type of prayer consists of 1% prayer and 99% communicating unselfish Love which encourages true identity and high purpose to emerge. (Pristine Divine Love, virtue, and Quality being nurtured in human consciousness.)
2. Youth and Creativity Hint at the Relationship Between Prayer and Creativity.
Prayer and intuition need a youthful outlook. A youthful openness contributes to having fresh, spontaneous, and original thoughts. Generally speaking, younger children don't have congested subconscious minds, so they have fresh thoughts and learn faster.
Child-like thoughts correspond to uncluttered thoughts.
A youthful thought still believes that ideals are possible to demonstrate.
We have all heard the belief repeated that children are more psychic and spiritual than adults. A child's thought tends not to get stuck on memorized answers. It's later a child outgrows that natural freedom of thought. Children have a psychic sensitivity at the speed of their openness and lack of cultural filters and clutter. Though modern culture reaches children earlier than in Jesus' day, Jesus spoke about children as not spoiled by the culture and close to the nature of God's kingdom. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom of God belongs to people like these." {Luke 18:16, International Standard Version.}
3. When Praying in Secret for the Undefended Thought, You are Praying Where Others are Not.
The following hint is about how secret prayer can address an undefended thought. It's not a formula. It's a hint on improving the effectiveness of prayer. The Spindrift finding is to "protect the undefended thought."
A joke goes "No matter where you look, there's the invisible field." If you see an unusual item in the field to pray about, don't let others know what you are seeing at that very moment. "Silence is golden. Duct tape is silver. Bring out the duct tape."
Some thoughts should not be said aloud. "Silence is golden." The secret to prayer is to keep your prayers private. Secrecy allows the shielding of Love to flow. Secrecy opens up a private bandwidth within a crowded mental field.
Prayer is less curtailed and more direct when secretive.
Silent secret prayer is the only call the government can't hear.
Here are examples of secret prayers applied to “the undefended thought.” Instead of praying about "world peace," which the masses pray about, pray about local peace or praying about the word greed or the idea of cooling down heat or of God's control of the animal instinct to trigger mortal temper. In place of praying about gridlock, pray about greedlock. These ideas are thoughts on which few people dwell. They are undefended thoughts. That is, few people are praying about these ideas. Undefended fresh ideas provide alternate pathways for prayer to flow.
Secretly address a concept that the masses may not protect or defend. With less interference from others’ collective prayers and intentions, your prayers have an easier access as a clear channel to the needs of the patient.
Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, supports this strategy. "Be where your enemy is not." Baseball player, Willie Keeler, said about swinging at a ball, "Hit them where they ain't."
Most of us have been in a grand central railroad station or a traffic gridlock during rush hour. It’s a similar congestion when too many people pray about the same location and subject. Don’t be part of the crowd mentality. Choose to pray for the least congested angle of a subject. Pray where others are not. Pray in secret for something no one else is praying about. Have original thinking about your theme to focus on in prayer.
Look for the undefended thought about a friend, patient, situation, or political position. Try to pray for the subtext: what's underneath or hidden. For example, if there is a war between religions, pray about the word dogma. Dogma is the subtext.
Settle on a concept to pray about that you presume no one else or few are considering. Here are three examples. Many people pray about world hunger or the famine in Africa. Instead, secretly substitute praying about milk, nourishment, preservation, human fuel. In place of praying to stop illegal border crossings, pray about "fences make good neighbors." Instead of praying to stop wars, pray about the word land, as the possession of land is the subtext of wars. Ponder a higher concept of the word possession.
Perhaps a cynical joke makes the point. About the situation in Iraq, Wall Street says, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the oil."
Praying in secret can free individuals from the vector of the mob phenomenon and thinking and praying as a member of a tribe.
Jesus Christ taught about secret prayer. He taught, “When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father secretly. Then your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.” {Matthew 6:6, New Living Translation.} Jesus' council could also mean that secret prayer is a protection for prayer.
An analogy of undefended thought could be a burglar not going to the front door of a house where everyone else goes to get in and is visible by the neighbors. Instead, a burglar looks for a small basement window out of sight of the neighbors. The small window is an unprotected and undefended access point. Likewise, secret prayer looks for a small window, an access point as a concept that no one else or few are defending.
Here is one more analogy. When walking through a noisy lobby of a hotel, one has a difficult time getting his thoughts quiet. There is a cacophony of many minds screaming at once. You might have to watch your feet, so not to get entangled in other's feet.
Imagine walking through that same hotel lobby at three a.m. in the morning. The hotel lobby would be a different world. There would be peace and quiet. You would see and hear things in silence. In a sense, the lobby would be undefended, except for you being there with your spiritual thoughts.
One insight the Klingbeils learned was to keep yourself out-of-sight. A spotlight might become an interrogation light. When praying for someone or for an experiment, keep your prayers private and secret. In our tech culture, it's becoming problematic to have private prayers let alone private conversations anymore.
One of the few ways to keep a target out-of-range is not broadcast to people what you are thinking. When you pray in secret, you are saying to the invasions on your private spiritual thoughts and plans, "Excuse me while I disappear."
An additional hint about defending your secret prayers: Try not get too entangled in the fog of the 'quantity influence of thoughts on you from the mob mentality.' Avoiding the 'mob mentality' is a key to spiritual development.
4. Prayer Should Include Noise Reduction.
When is the last time you had an original thought? It has become harder to have an original thought with all the competing thoughts and modern noises hitting our minds and bodies. Silence may become a sound that we may never hear again, as logically twisted as that sounds. There may be artificial attempts at creating a silent environment, but no more natural places of silence.
What is an advantage to private prayer? Private prayer can sometimes be a sanctuary for silence that creates a sense of silence. There is a signal-to-noise ratio for silent prayer. Prayers that are private keep others from knowing what you are thinking which keeps the noise ratio low. Praying in private quiets your mind to hear your own original thoughts.
Outside of quiet time, meditation, prayer, relaxing, and rest our thoughts tend to hear and repeat others' thoughts. Jesus Christ said, "When you pray, use not vain repetitions." {Matthew 6:7.} To have your original thoughts heard without noise, Jesus Christ advises that the Divine Ear hears us when we go into a closet (an isolated private room) and close the door behind us. Then "Pray to God in secret." {Matthew 6:6.}
If the background in a room is quiet, you can speak to a person with a hearing problem one on one. Add a crowd of people, and hearing you speak becomes noise to the person trying to hear your voice. If you purchase a pair of noise cancelling earphones, this clever invention should assist in having quieter thoughts
About noise, often your personal business and plans should be kept to yourself. With exceptions, why should anyone affect and add noise to your high intentions? The Bible advises "He will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart." {Psalm 37:4.}
One lady said that praying aloud for her and hearing her voice helped to block out noise.
A Spindrift prediction is that mankind will have a strong desire for quietness. The desire for silence should resonate with what the Psalmist wrote "Be still, and know that I am God." {Psalm 46:10.} Spindrift predicts "The Twenty-first Century will leave little privacy. The inner stillness of spirituality will be found an oasis of quiet and calmness by default." (A Journey Into Prayer, page 125.)
See Question 14 on the FAQ page which about one way to control noise and interference affecting us human beings.
5. Do you prepare to say The Ten Second Prayer?
When a patient is waiting outside the door, a client is arriving for an appointment with you, a friend visits you for advice, state to yourself a ten second prayer. That short prayer affirms that you are paying attention and giving a name to the object of attention coming through the door or telephone. A short prayer that adjusts your focus that acknowledges the object of your attention sets you up to be a helper and a healer. The ten second prayer is a way to further strengthen your Associational Linkage to your relationships.
The vibrant relational concept of Associational Linkage is explained in Question 5 on the FAQ page and for going in depth, try this link.
