Prayer Leads to Hope
8/17/09 Spiritual Presentations
Thank You, Lord, for answering my prayer and totally taking away from me that agonizing pain. Some would say that my tooth would have eventually stopped hurting even without Your intervention. But You and I know that nothing had happened, except Your loving grace and my prayer to You, that could have severed that exposed nerve from reaching the pain receptors in my brain.
Isn’t that a lot like the mystic idea of perception of reality? Reality is not always what we perceive, like pain, because we do not perceive perfectly, and reality, being reality, is perfection. You, Lord, and Your will for our good, is what reality is, and You have prepared for us a place with no pain and no heartache; free from fear or worry.
You give us glimpses of this perfection to inspire hope in us. We cannot fully experience Your perfection while we go through our trial of Earthly life, but this faulty perception can clear up in small ways if we ask for this in sincere, honoring, prayer to You. And each time perception is cleared up for us through prayer, we release a little more of our doubt and fill the void it leaves with hope.
Prayer leads to hope – this is why mystics communicate with God. Yes, we can receive what we ask for but, more importantly, we receive validation for our hope in eternal life and the part God plays in this Earthly one.
