>>9970480Prayer
The Urantia Book
>[Paper: Section. Paragraph]>[91:8.12] Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow. The word value of a prayer is purely autosuggestive in private devotions and sociosuggestive in group devotions. God answers the soul's attitude, not the words.
> [91:8.13] Prayer is not a technique of escape from conflict but rather a stimulus to growth in the very face of conflict. Pray only for values, not things; for growth, not for gratification.
> [91:9.1] If you would engage in effective praying, you should bear in mind the laws of prevailing petitions:
>[91:9.2] 1. You must qualify as a potent prayer by sincerely and courageously facing the problems of universe reality. You must possess cosmic stamina.
> [91:9.3] 2. You must have honestly exhausted the human capacity for human adjustment. You must have been industrious.
> [91:9.4] 3. You must surrender every wish of mind and every craving of soul to the transforming embrace of spiritual growth. You must have experienced an enhancement of meanings and an elevation of values.
>[91:9.5] 4. You must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision.
> [91:9.6] 5. You not only recognize the Father's will and choose to do it, but you have effected an unqualified consecration, and a dynamic dedication, to the actual doing of the Father's will.
> [91:9.7] 6. Your prayer will be directed exclusively for divine wisdom to solve the specific human problems encountered in the Paradise ascension—the attainment of divine perfection.
> [91:9.8] 7. And you must have faith—living faith. [91:9.9] [Presented by the Chief of the Urantia Midwayers.]