Every Thought is a Prayer

I don't think that most of us think of prayer in this way. We see prayer as an act that is only done when our heads are bowed and we are petitioning God for a need that we, or someone else, may have. We pray in the morning. We pray at night. We pray whenever trouble comes. We pray when we are thankful for what has come. However, do we really see prayer that is without ceasing, listen to every thought we have, and feel every feeling that these thoughts create in us?

Pray without ceasing. I Thessalonians 5:17

Do we realize that we do this, that every thought we have is a prayer that gets answered? Think about it for a minute. See in you mind a picture of the thoughts that you are having throughout the day and the kind of life they are making for you. Listen to what those thoughts have to say to you and you think them. Feel if they make you joyful or anxious. The thoughts we think either match the mind of God, or they are something that God cannot hear, see or feel because God does not talk that language. For instance when we ask for something from God and say or think - "I am lacking and I need something from you" - God does not know about lack. Picture two milk jugs sitting next to each other. One of them is full of water and one of them is empty. Listen as the empty says to the full one, "I am empty can you help me out?" The full one says to it, "what is empty I have always been full?" This jug does not understand the concept of empty and has no idea how to help. However, if the empty one says to the full one, "I want to be full like you," the full jug could understand and tell it just how to go about that.

So what are your thoughts more like? Do you have more of a tendency to think "I am in such need, I will never be full, God can you help?" Or are you more apt to think "I will be full, happy, and joyful - full!" Which ever way you think, these are your prayers without ceasing. The way we think will define what we will place our attention on. There will be evidence for lack if you want to find it. There is also evidence for your life being full if you want to find it. It is not that God does not answer our prayers, but really answers every one of them. We are either connected to God in our thoughts or disconnected in our thoughts. God does not go anywhere - we do. When we do disconnect ourselves from God and something comes into our life that we do not want, it may be because we were a match to that. Look at one of the most famous prayers on the planet and notice that he did not ask for what he was missing, but asked to be like more like God:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Namaste'