PRAYER how does it work?

Why does it transform people?
What is "Spiritual Growth?"

I suggest that God is not some Super Magician in the Heavens. So prayer for me is not a means of inducing the Mighty One to cause changes in one’s situation. I do not mean that God cannot work miracles. But I believe that praying to God for a miracle, that is, something extraordinary is not what prayer is about.

Yet most people understand prayer just like that, asking for something beyond natural intervention. "There are no atheists in foxholes." They don’t pray precisely for miracles, but they do expect some miraculous outcome--that God "help" them be relieved, or change some situation. To the extent this is true nothing more can be said to this mentality.

Prayer is rather about getting ourselves in tune with God, not getting God in tune with us or to "do something for us."

If prayer to God is not a way of inviting a miracle, what is the meaning of "prayer to God"?

When we talk about this mystery of God, we are often talking simply about radical openness to Otherness, Something beyond our ken, and asking that Mystery to be accomplished, or "done," in us. This means that the effect of prayer is in ourselves, not in God.

What is that effect? The stillness and quiet of trusting prayer leave room for the heart to open. Said more psychologically, quiet allows us to be sensitive to the power of the human spirit expressing itself in emotions, images and memories.

To remain with this spiritual awareness in openness to being transformed (here the believer may say "to God’s Presence) begins a transformation of the layered "stuckness" of the personality. An inner resonance and resilience slowly develops.

More of our inner selves gets exposed to the Light, we could say. When this gentle process of transformation continues over periods of time, increasingly the leadings of spirit guide and form the layers of the personality.

Thus, regular prayer is one way to further human growth that is, in fact, spiritual growth. Such growth is an increased awareness of the inclinations of the dynamic inner spirit. More regular assent to those inclinations (leadings) means increased human authenticity.

The process can begin to snowball. Spiritual growth can serve to release human powers that are innate but rarely actualized. In this way prayer can be said to "work miracles."

Spiritual growth, then, we can describe as an increasingly deliberate entrance into the natural functioning and unfolding of the universe. (Positivist view). But said in theist terms, this growth is a growth in holiness–an ever more fine tuning and firm commitment to God’s plan operating in the universe, deepening both courage, compassion and commitment.

Perhaps, "Good-Orderly-Direction, in Divine sync, with a responsiveness that is unique and authentic? "

Much writing from the Society of Friends Quaker Tradition can make this process even more clear. This we will access later.

–notes here taken from Helminiak, p. 275-76.