The New Thought Simplified · 38 of 38

Twelfth Suggestive Lesson

I look upward. Prayer in its highest form is communion and aspiration. Petition is not needed to change God, because he is already perfect. True prayer wields divine forces and makes them ministries of blessing. It discovers and utilizes the higher law. Every prayer for the best is eternally answered,—on God’s part,—but not to us—unless we come into at-onement. “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them” (Mark xi. 24. New Version). Note the “have received.”

If ruling desire binds me to God, I shall receive what is God-like. I link myself there, and not to dust. I pray to be whole, and on God’s part the answer is eternally complete. To pray is to lift the soul into unison with the Eternal Goodness. The “Christ mind” is the full-orbed consciousness of divinity within. It grows in me. I have it. I feel it. I embody it. It soothes. It restores. It heals.

I yield myself to the higher harmonies. Wherever the reign of love is set up, there is heaven. It comes not as a gift, or arbitrarily. It is a growth. “These signs shall follow them that believe.” Are “them that believe” limited to a single country or period? What are the “signs”? See Mark xvi. 17, 18.

§ Under the Divine Law the Higher Prayer Provides for Its Own

Answer.