SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE:

Before you read this column let’s have an understanding. I don’t expect anyone to believe a word I say. So I ask only one thing: Suspend your disbelief until you have read every word. Then believe whatever you choose. Let’s begin.

Prayer is the only healing power. All else is the explanation and control of symptoms. Prayer is not begging God for relief or magic. Prayer is an act of authority, the kind of authority that reveals a truth inherent within every life created to set you free.

Healing is the experience of absolutely knowing all is well and that you can’t remember being sick, unhappy, afraid or poor. I know this sounds crazy to some, but such is the power of love, faith and belief.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is with those who are grieving, looking for answers to the pain of the indescribable feeling of loss and separation that comes when a loved one dies.

But apply prayer and that feeling subsides and peace replaces grief and love supplants fear.

Prayer is not the exclusive property of any system of belief or religion. In my tradition, prayer is described as “a movement of thought, within the mind of the one praying, along a definite line of meditation; that is, for a specific purpose.”

We also believe that the answer to the prayer is in the prayer — that even before you ask the answer is made manifest. There is no process of healing, but there is generally a process in healing described as the time and effort it takes to realize the Truth.

Finally, prayer is essential for happiness and is a ritual that requires study and application.

Don’t have such a ritual? I invite you to go to www.youtube.com and type in How to Pray with Dr. Jim. Or you can subscribe to our daily prayers and inspirations at www.cmcsd.org. Either way, if you don’t learn how to pray, you haven’t got a prayer.

JIM TURRELL is the senior pastor at the Center for Spiritual Living.