Assertive prayer; aggressive prayer; determined prayer … These are words that I heard from my heart early this morning when I awoke.
I am like a musical instrument – we all are. I am able to form sounds with my voice. Such sounds may be guttural, like groans emitted from deep within the throat that appear to rumble up, originating from somewhere deep in the abdomen, even as deep as the lower intestines. Sometimes the sounds remain unintelligible to the mind or the intellect; these sounds are unformed words. I understand these sounds as the groans and travails direct from my soul – the soul that has no voice except the vocal chords in the throat.
The action of my soul (which is the real me) engaged in active prayer may be very demonstrative, or it may be a place of quietness - silence that may be more real than the noisy groans and unformed utterances of the voice.
This morning my prayers were somewhere between noisy groans and silence, but I think closer to the range of the first. It was assertive prayer, and at times of such determination that it was nearly aggressive – clearly earnest but also on the edge of aggressiveness.
What was it that caused me to be in such a place that I was experiencing assertiveness in my prayers?
My answer is this: I believe in availability of God’s Higher Love – the Divine Love; I believe that this Love is a real substance, an ingredient that when added to the soul will actually change its very qualities. I further believe that this Higher Love does not come into the soul in any other way except by the voluntary action of a human, which involves the choice of free will. Divine Love never flows into the soul without invitation, and this invitation must be initiated by the soul.
Notwithstanding the fact that God’s Higher Love is waiting, there are many blocks that humans must remove or overcome before the choice for God’s Great Love can be made. The first, of course, is unbelief. How can we ask for something we don’t know exists? And once we have heard the news about this Divine Love, how can we make a choice to receive it unless we first believe that it is true? And in addition, even if we have heard and tried and actually received a portion of the Divine Love, how can we be open to receive more if we begin to doubt? Not only this, what happens when we get lazy, or when we harbor guilt so that we feel that God no longer loves us and accepts us the way that we are?
I prayed assertively this morning not because God asked me to do this, or expected it of me. No; I prayed with great earnestness because I felt that doubts were trying to distract me from receiving more of the Divine Love. I have found through experience that Divine Love is more like a flowing stream than a drop of water in a small glass! I may choose to drink only a small portion from the living stream; but this image is much closer to the truth than the image of a limited supply in a small glass.
Whatever the specific case or condition that existed in my life this morning, I felt that some sort of block stood in the way of my experiencing more of the Divine Love. I heard the word “assertive” as I was waking up. And, thus, when I went into my room to begin to pray for more of God’s Great Love I prayed with sincere earnestness. I went into prayer with boldness, knowing that His Love was waiting to be received, and I was not disappointed – for it is only we ourselves that can prevent His Love changing us from the mortal to the immortal.