Seven
Secrets
of Prayer
EASTER IS A TIME when churches are
thronged with millions who come
to worship, to rejoice, to pray. It is a
time when prayer and its implications
are brought into sudden, sharp focus.
In my research and writing on religion, I have
explored these implications and have compiled
what I call the seven basic secrets one could
call them techniques of prayer. I would like
to share them with you.
1. Prayer is not a question but an answer.
A young woman came to me not long ago in
deep distress and anger. "I poured out my heart
to God in prayer," she said. "I told Him all my
problems. I asked for guidance and absolutely
nothing has changed!"
"But did you take time," I asked, "to listen to
His answer?" She seemed startled. Further dis
cussion revealed clearly she had not. She had
been so intent on pouring out all her questions
that she had failed to hear God's word to her.
We pray in affirmation and adoration ; we seek
His will for us, knowing that it is all good. And
the prompting comes within us, in the morning
of quiet, in the silence. Listen for the answer
is there.
2. Prayer is not a demand but a promise.
Promise of what? A promise to seek not for
ourselves alone but rather to be channels of
God's purpose.
One man prayed that he could be instru
mental in ridding a neighbor woman of her
brutish, drunken husband. One night when the
husband was in a rage, the neighbor stormed
into the house, threatened to thrash the hus
band, and told him, "I'm praying to God that
she can get rid of you so I can marry her and
give her some happiness."
Those knife-edged words ripped through the
husband's alcoholic haze. The result was ex
traordinary; in the days that followed, the man
began to reclaim himself and his marriage. The
neighbor eventually moved to another part of
town, without understanding how his prayer
could possibly have resulted in this victory
for the husband.
3. Prayer is both a petition and a repenting.
At a party, a group of young "intellectuals"
were discussing repentance. Several insisted
that they had nothing to repent. An older man
asked, "You mean you never did a thing you
wanted to tell somebody you were sorry for?"
To tell somebody we're sorry! There are guilts
that we pile up on ourselves, little items and
big; these are the burdens that we seek to have
lifted from us in our prayers.
4. Prayer involves awareness.
We must be aware that God's will for us is
always the will of love, and we must realize that
through Him even the impossible is possible.
During World War II, a friend of mine was
shot down in the South Pacific. He and his crew
were on a raft, trying to get back to an American-held
island. It was night and moonless. Al
though they prayed the brief, silent prayers of
such moments, rescue seemed beyond hope. Yet
my friend was sure he would be rescued; some
one would come, as friends had come back home
on his farm in Alabama whenever he needed
help.
They heard a plane, and by the engines they
knew it was one of ours. Someone had a cigar
rette lighter. When the plane came closer, he
lit it and the night-flying amphibious patrol
plane came down and made the rescue.
After my friend was taken aboard the rescue
plane, he discovered that the pilot was an old
school chum from back home in Alabama!
5. Prayer is most effective when it is offered
for others.
Theologians warn that such prayers should
never be used as a substitute for our own char
itable actions nor as a means of imposing our
ideas or secret desires or judgments on some
one else. But selflessly offered, intercessory
prayer for others works miracles. In his A Primer
of Prayer, Charles Laymon says, "It is love that
gives significance to all praying, especially when
we are lifting up others to God."
6. We should have a place apart for our reg
ular prayers.
It may be a corner of our home or garden, or
it may be in a church or temple when other peo-
At Easter, a noted
religious writer offers
helpful advice
concerning an often
misunderstood subject
By WILL OURSLER
pie are not there in large numbers.
What is important is that it be a place to
which you go; that it require a certain action,
a definite active step toward God in going there,
in bowing your head, in consecrating yourself.
7. Effective prayer is possible, particularly
in emergency, under any conditions.
We can be in contact with the Infinite any
time and any place. But the reaching out to God
cannot be flippant or offhand; it cannot be a
casual conversation en route from the hair
dresser to the cocktail lounge. It must be deeply,
earnestly, completely meant.
An intern in a New York hospital goes from
bed to bed down the long aisle of the hospital
ward each night and prays beside each bed. He
tells no one in the hospital of this.
How much good he achieves cannot be meas
ured. But he knows, as he has told me, that his
prayers are heard.
A ticket vendor at a circus may pray effective
ly so may a night-club dancer or an alcoholic
on Skid Row. When a prayer is offered as a
sacred thing, it does not go unheard.
Prayer in its highest state is communion with
God. It is not asking nor demanding nor peti
tioning nor seeking. It is a listening, it is a wel
coming of the Holy Spirit in ourselves, it is
opening ourselves to the eternal response of
His Kingdom.
All that we need, all that is right for us stems
from this communion which is ours in prayer.
COVER:
This lovely church, photographed by Eric
M. Sanford, nestles in Old Sturbridge,
a reconstructed early-New England village
in Massachusetts. It draws throngs yearly.
Family
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