Prayer enables openness.

When you pray that God intervenes in a situation to make things “right” as you may define that, you are opening yourself through the act of prayer, not through the words of prayer, not through the common practice of prayer, however it may be exercised. You can pray with no words. You can pray symbolically by opening your hands and inviting to your innermost self the love that exists. That is sufficient.

Many religions of the world have codified or standardized the function, the very appearance, of prayer. For many, such practices bring what is far beyond human perception into an entity that takes on almost human characteristics. There are many religions that have traditional images of what God might look like. There are religions that refuse to make any images of God. There are religions that don’t use a term for a single entity of any kind, and yet they believe in the existence of a power, in the existence of an energy beyond what they know.

The power of prayer is extraordinary, not because you are asking God to act, but because you are enabling your spirit to be open, to be one with the universes, one with nature, one with others. You may have asked God to step in, to intervene, to change things. You may have asked God to give you strength, perseverance, sensitivity. You may have asked God how to be more loving. There are countless attributes that are included in what you ask of God, but every one of those responses you ask from God are actually your own responses, for they are responses associated with your own spirit. God acts in your lives because you act in your lives. It is by your actions that others may come to see or feel that long-sought presence.