InnerSelf.com

by Marie T. Russell.

In 1952, a bill proclaiming an annual National Day of Prayer (NDP) was unanimously passed by both houses of congress. President Truman signed it into law. In 1988, a bill was introduced to Congress which fixed the annual National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May...

The most direct way to encourage your children to ask for help is to teach them to pray. Most kids like to pray once they learn how and will do it naturally in some form or another anyway. Whatever approach you take, the truth is that you can choose how you pray. After all, prayer is really having a private chat with God...

by James F. Twyman.

In mountains of Bosnia, a community of mystics who call themselves the Emissaries of Light, said to me: "Our role is not to bring peace to where it is not, but to reveal peace where it is hidden." Peace, the Emissaries said, is not something that can be understood with the mind, but must be experienced with the heart.

The phrase "thy will be done" in the Lord's Prayer is a statement of resignation for many, the calling down of a power to do something that may not be what we had in mind. It's as though we're saying, "Since I can't have what I want in life, I guess I'll have to settle...

by Rebecca Z. Shafir, M.A. CCC.

Misunderstanding, not being heard, and missing key information due to poor listening are at the crux of societal ills. One of the main reasons we listen poorly is because our internal noise levels are so turbulent and obtrusive that they mask most of what others are saying. Only bits and pieces of their message survive the barrage of our mental interference.

A woman told me that gratitude was her constant prayer, and I was impressed. But, I realized that her gratitude was actually a defense against life. 'I am so grateful for sunshine, health, my wonderful family'. 'Do you express gratitude for the storms, for the illness, for the down times too?'...

'START FROM WHERE YOU ARE' is generally good advice in any undertaking. But, like many travelers on the highway, sometimes we don't even know that we don't know where we are and yet we are unwilling to admit it. Instead, lost as we may be, we keep driving, ashamed to ask...

There is a three-step process of inner healing that I have found to be very helpful in my life. Although it is a simple process, it can be powerful. Although those three steps are simple in theory, they are not always easy to practice. However, I find that they can produce very tangible results.

The power of affirmation, prayer, and blessing has been used for thousands of years in both spiritual and folk rites, by priestesses and priests, and by people trying to bring health, harmony, and happiness into their lives. In earlier times at the gigantic stone temples that dot the English countryside...

The 23rd Psalm is one of the most popular prayers in the Western world. This beautiful collection of words can be the key to reclaiming spiritual power. Most of us recognize the 23rd Psalm's familiar phrases, but what we don't often appreciate is the impact of the principles contained in the Psalm, probably because it doesn't fit the model of what we've been taught a prayer should be.

Thank you, infinite goodness, for your bounteous gifts, including peace, love, freedom and joy, health, energy, and abundance which liberally surge through me and to me each time I live fully in the here-and-now with you, and let go of all my perceived pain from people and circumstances in my past, and all my behaviors and habits born of ignorance and fear.

Prayer can be a most difficult and trying task. Many of us live in a deadlock between belief and unbelief. Underlying an ardent prayer can be the question, "Is anyone listening?" The experiences of our century with its massive blind destruction, suffering, and carnage cast doubt on the concept of a God involved in the welfare of the created universe.