The Answer to Prayer
Greetings and good morning brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we will ponder our lives as we seek to understand the answer to prayer.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Answer to Prayer
"And spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought to always to pray, and not to
faint..." Luke, Chapter 18, Verses 1.
Brothers and sisters, our conscious minds pray to God to find a solution to a problem. In this sense
the problem precedes the answer, but from the spiritual point of view, the problem is the answer to
the unconscious petitions of our souls. Thus, the answer precedes the problem. Our souls need truth
to grow, ever increasing amounts of truth. In our lives, truth is not experienced apart from reality.
The reality that our minds and souls experience is progressive; that is, it is incomplete, not fully
coordinated. Incomplete reality, not fully coordinated reality, is presented to our conscious minds
and souls as problematic in some or all of its phases.
The problems of our material selves and growing souls are diametrically opposed. Basically our
animal natures want to be fed. It seeks a life of ease, a life free of struggle. It is not interested in the
unselfish welfare of others. It is not interested in spiritual living. Ponder the episode where Jesus fed
the five thousand.
Our souls also want to be fed, but being of a spiritual nature, they want to be fed the bread of life and
the living waters of truth. Our souls long to experience goodness, to experience completeness, to
experience beauty. So while our material minds pray for help in overcoming its material difficulties,
our souls ask for growth in overcoming their incomplete status. They desire to become perfect as the
heavenly Father is perfect.
From our subconscious minds come the ideas to fight the struggles of the material nature, for the
material nature is also incomplete. As our material selves live, they gain more and more of the
solutions to their material problems. But in a given individual, material life has a limited life span.
A person is likely to expire before solutions to all his varied problems can be solved.
From the superconscious mind, the home of the Father's spirit, come the spiritual meanings and
values that our souls and conscious minds experience. For it is in response to the cry of our hungry
souls for truth and righteousness that the moral problems come, concealing these same qualities.
Initially our material minds are only conscious of the material life and only reacts to the material
meanings and values associated with that life. This is the reason for pain, sorrow, and
disappointment experienced by the material mind.
All too often the material meanings and values yielded are disagreeable and disappointing. The
material mind is thus not ordinarily conscious of the meanings and values of the spirit. Thus the great
challenge in our mortal life is to become conscious of the spiritual meanings and values of the soul,
to become increasingly loyal to these values, and finally to transfer the seat of our consciousness to
this spiritualizing self.
Our moral consciousness allows us to first discern the relative level of good and evil, and then
empowers us to choose good over evil. This choosing continues even at the expense of the material
nature; thus the moral consciousness must be an agency of the spiritual nature. To choose good over
evil when the same choosing is detrimental to the material consciousness indicates the reality and
supremacy of the spiritual nature.
The revelation of spiritual meanings and values in the conscious mind is the reality of the spiritual
experience. The attempt to attain greater and ever increasing levels of spiritual meanings and values
are no less than an attempt to comprehend the spirit Father.
These answers that are sent to our souls in the form of problems are in response to the petitions of
our souls. Our souls have to develop loyalty, thus the need of those experiences that force it to
choose higher and higher loyalties. Through trial and error, our souls try out various allegiances but
eventually discovers that all of them are unworthy. This process continues until the soul finally
reaches the supreme allegiance, the personification of truth who is worthy: the divine Son, Jesus.
Subsequent to this event, trial and error are no longer necessary in finding truth. The soul has found
its maker, and always remains true, ever choosing the way of the true, the beautiful, and the good.
Also subsequent to this event, the soul has all the courage that it needs. Courage is a function of
loyalty--the higher the loyalty, the greater the courage that is exercised. Courage can never be
exercised any higher than the object of its loyalty. It is very difficult to be courageous when such an
act results in the loss of something that is important to one. Only when the object of loyalty is
supreme is there absence of conflict in the exercising of courage. To be supremely courageous then
is to be supremely loyal. Only on supreme levels are the two truly coordinated.
This concludes today's message on understanding the answer to prayer. We hope you find something
in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day. Until next time, this is Dr. James
Perry
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Answer to Prayer
