Answered Prayer

"When ye pray, believe that ye receive, and ye shall receive." [Mark 11:24]. Believe that ye receive — is the condition imposed upon man. Unless we believe that we receive, our prayer will not be answered.

Prayer is the elevation of the mind to that which we seek. The very first word of correction is always "arise." Always lift the mind to that which we seek. This is easily done by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

Prayer means getting into action mentally. It means holding the attention upon the idea of the wish fulfilled until it fills the mind and crowds all other ideas out of the consciousness.

Prayer is a surrender. It means abandoning oneself to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. If prayer brings no response — there is something wrong with the prayer and the fault lies generally in too much effort.

One of the loveliest examples of an answered prayer I witnessed in my own living room. A boy said, "Mr. Neville, I know how to pray now. I know what I want — a collie puppy — and I can imagine I am hugging him every night on my bed." Two months later, his essay won the prize, and that prize was a collie puppy.

The word translated as "importunity" means, literally, shameless impudence. We must persist until we succeed in imagining ourselves into the situation of the answered prayer.

Prayer is a controlled waking dream. If we are to pray successfully, we must steady our attention to observe the world as it would be seen by us were our prayer answered.

Our prayers are answered by the powers we invoke not by those we exert. Life is not a struggle but a surrender.