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THE
CALL TO PRAYER
by Leotha Evans
When I was a little girl living on a farm just outside of
New Orleans, where I was born in a family of 12 siblings,
my parents would have the biggest argument about whose church
the children would go to that Sunday. My mother was Creole
and a staunch Catholic; my father was a Baptist Deacon. Of
course, we children always preferred to attend my father's
church. Although the service was an all-day affair, it was
fun. And at the noon break for lunch, the food was oh so good!
At the start of the service, my father, being the church Deacon,
would stand and go to the pulpit and call the congregation
to prayer. The congregation would start a low, mournful hum.
And you would hear some say, "Lord, Lord Jesus, Jesus," and
the prayer would begin.
The Deacon would call Jesus into the service and the congregation
would respond to his every word. The Deacon would begin to
beg God to do a variety of things in a loud voice. "Come down
here, Lord! Heal the sick, Lord! Make Sister White Eyes see
better, Lord! Lord, watch over our crops! Lord, drive away
the bo weevil from the cotton this year! Lord, help us!"
By this time, the whole congregation was on fire! They would
begin to jump and shout in the aisles, and someone would break
out with a tearful old hymn, what I later came to know as
an old Negro spiritual.
In all of this, I remembered thinking, "If I could only pray
like that to God, maybe He would give me a new doll (my brother
had broken her head open, and I had just sewed her leg and
arm on.)
That was the call to prayer as I remember it as a child. Of
course, I have long since thought of prayer for myself, and
I have come to grasp a different meaning to prayer. I believe
it is important that one learn to pray correctly.
I know that my old church family believed and practiced loud
communication to God - out and up there and loud - so that
God could hear their supplications. How could they know that
what was so loudly being sent out and up there was not necessary?
God was not far-off, not needing loud supplications to bring
them health and supply all of their needs. What was needed
was silence, for how else could they hear God when He spoke?
It was by the grace of God that their needs were taken care
of.
I have come to know that prayer is not what you say or do,
it is what you are - it's the inside turned out, it's an inside
made visible outside. Prayer is not for God, it's for you.
Your prayers are not going to change God, nor make Him do
something for you - it doesn't work that way.
The purpose of prayer is to change your thinking to a state
of receptivity. It is the preparation in consciousness to
receive the word of God. Prayer is liken unto a spiritual
healing. Prayer is what happens to you in the inner sanctum
of your own consciousness, where you connect with the present.
Praying to God for something is not the answer. What is needed
is to be lifted in consciousness to understand the nature
and the will of God, for it is His good pleasure to give you
the kingdom of heaven. God gives Himself and in Him all needs
are met. Truly, God's grace is sufficient.
First, prayer is Silence.
As we come into the presence of God there is a need for silence,
where all the mind's chatter stops. Prayer is when we no longer
have thought; it is where, for a moment, we are living by
grace. Prayer is the realization that He that is within is
greater than any concerns we have without. In silence we listen.
This is when we are in the world, but not of the world. As
Johnathan Livingston Seagull says, "The gull who sees farthest
is the one that flies highest."
Secondly, prayer is to seek to know
the will of God. We think that prayer is to fix
something, and that it does, but it is not the something that
it fixes - it is us.
Because man thinks that he is separate from God, he places
his reliance on people and things in the outer world - on
education, money, investments, work - and then he goes to
God with a laundry list of wants. But what we must come to
know is that we are instruments for the fulfillment of the
will of God. Through the "thundering silence of meditation,"
we come to know the will of God. We stop trying to make things
happen for ourselves, our family, friends, or situations in
our lives. Instead, we pray that the Christ-mind take over
in our consciousness, for in the Christ-mind, all good appears.
And, thirdly, prayer is what happens to us. Prayer
releases us from leaning on our own understanding and from
asking God to bless what we think is best for us. What is
happening to us in prayer is that we lay down our will (ego)
and surrender it all to God. We think that we are tied down
with needs, but prayer unties us and lifts us in consciousness,
which changes our outer conditions. Our gaze is shifted from
our concerns and we come to rest in the Omnipotence of the
all-powerful God and the Omniscience of the all-knowing God.
Then we come to know the "He has given His angels charge over
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."
Prayer comes from within us, and all that we could ever ask
for shows up on the outside of us. We are so precious to God,
His love for us is so great, it is the will of God to give
us the kingdom.
Now, my fellow travelers, as Johnathan Livingston Seagull
says, "You don't need faith to fly, you need to understand
flying." And I say to you, you don't need faith to pray, you
need to understand how to pray when you are called to prayer.
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