Recently I watched a clip on the purpose of prayer, which sparked a lot thoughts. The priest in the video said something to the effect of: If God is unchangeable and knows everything, what’s the point of prayer? Obviously this is not a simple concept, so I have to do best I can with a short summary. The key take away for me though, was thinking of prayer as a facilitator of change in myself so that I can become a more beautiful version of God’s creation.
This made a lot of sense to me, because when I think about my prayer intentions now and just a few years ago, it’s a world’s difference.
Further, all the positive change did not occur from getting the object of my prayer, but from expanding my tunnel vision to notice the greater magic that’s been there all along.
However, I want to see if I can take this further. I am a firm believer in how you do one thing is how you do everything and so I wanted to take a bit of time to see how this could extend to other areas of my life.
The immediate thing coming to my mind is to use the object of desires to backward engineer the mindset of the person for whom that particular result is a byproduct … but I think that is too obvious … let’s see if I can peel another layer off the onion …. I feel like that’s within me …
I mean, one potential vulnerability is how do I know weather I need to change or perhaps I am perfect the way I am and it’s a simple matter of staying the course?
Just like in prayer, the key is faith. Faith to know that if a choice is not a resounding YES, something internally or externally has to change in order to see it. Though I may not know today what or who needs to change, I do know that only way I’ll ever find the answer is by not settling.
To bring up one of my not-so-perfect, self-appointed, authenticity mentors, Steve Jobs: “If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”
How do you know you are not settling?
I know I’m not settling when my general feeling is one of openness and expansion. Even if it’s difficult or uncomfortable, I feel like I’m learning and growing. I know I’m settling when I start to feel stifled and small.
I haven’t thought of that … thank you for sharing great ideas!