A Little Saying: Friday 7-27-07

Today I read Psalm 106.

The snippet is:

Norman Vincent Peale asks:" Why should we pray? What good does it do?"

To which he provides the answer in the following passage:

In the first place, prayer is a way of increasing our sensitivity to the spiritual aspects of life. From this point of view, it is very much like exercise. A man's muscles become responsive by training...Exercise of any sort enlarges the capacity to understand, to appreciate, to react.

The soul is stretched and enlarged by prayer just as the body is stretched and enlarged by physical exercise. "O Lord, open my eyes that I may see truth and beauty in all Thy world, and Thy spirit in all things."

In the second place, prayer is good because it helps us conquer and control our appetites.

And, finally, prayer is a way of aspiration. It is a way of lifting ourselves, of getting a higher look, of transcending self. For when a man looks at life only from inside himself, or only from within the walls of his home, or profession, seeing the world as though it were all in terms of his special interests, then he is "too full of himself to have any room for God." But in prayer, he sees life as God sees it, and relates his own little life and his own little needs to the needs and life of humanity. He lifts himself by prayer, and achieves a high spiritual stature.

-Robert I. Kahn