Interestingly enough, this is precisely what I’ve discovered in my years of trying to improve my ability to get prayers answered. The main thing I always have to do is to first rid my mind of “anything against anyone”—any negative feelings whatsoever, from anger at someone in public who somehow got in my way to annoyance at people who happen to annoy me to irritation with friends and relatives whose attitudes happen to irritate me. There’s a passage somewhere in the Episcopal liturgy (& probably in many other liturgies as well) that says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” and this seems to be what it’s getting at.

Once we do this forgiving, this turning over of our negative feelings toward others to God and asking him to take them away, we find that our “hotline to heaven” suddenly works. We can actually ask for things that are in line with Love and God will give them to us. That’s because by submitting our angry or irritated wills to God’s will, we prepare ourselves to collaborate with the God of Love!

I like the reply I found myself writing:

>>>Why is love so hard??? I believe it’s because the purpose of this life is not for us to be “happy” all the time, not for punishment but for our own preparation for the next life, or for a higher level of consciousness, or whatever you want to call it!<<<

To change the subject slightly, twice in the space of 48 hours I found myself being careless in my interactions with others. First, on the way back from a family beach vacation I stopped by to visit with my old friend Malcolm, who used to own a charter fishing & scuba diving boat in Destin. He and his wife & I had a very spirited & enjoyable conversation, but I had hoped to ask Malcolm if he still believed in God, since I hadn’t talked to him about faith in decades. But I forgot, or never got around to it. I hope he does believe, because I hope he’s happy, truly happy.

My other instance of carelessness occurred Saturday evening at a wedding of a kid who grew up living next door to me, although she hasn’t lived there in years now, and I don’t keep up with her or her family on a regular basis. I get the sense that the bride is one of those few lucky people who _really_ believes in God, and if I had had the chance to tell her how rare that gift of faith is, I would have, but I knew I probably wouldn’t get the chance at the reception, and I didn’t. When I did talk to her, however, for some reason I made a conversational mistake that I wish I hadn’t. In trying to express how much she and her sister had grown & changed, I said, “I swear to God I wouldn’t have recognized either one of you” and then, remembering that she seems to be a more conservative Christian than I am and probably doesn’t say “I swear to God” very often herself, I tried to retract it but of course it was too late. My point here is that if I had been careful I would not have used language that could indicate that I don’t take God seriously myself, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. (I mean I take him so seriously that my faith is the absolute center of my life and has been for decades, but this bride didn’t know that!) Maybe I’ll get a chance to let her know sometime soon, but if not, I guess when my book comes out, she’ll find out then!

God, help all these folks as well as everyone else in the universe, with everything they do!

For example, in the years depicted in _Petitioning God_, I had to learn to stop expecting more from Belinda than she was prepared to give. Now, I need to become more willing to promote my book (instead of just sitting here writing it all the time).

It’s our human nature to resist this move of focusing on the God within us & doing what he lovingly urges us to do, but it’s the only way to be happy.

For example, I resisted my growth with regard to Belinda, repeatedly trying to pretend our relationship was more than it was, even after she met her honey Nicole, when at first I assumed they had merely met by chance when actually Belinda had aggressively tried to meet someone online, & finally succeeded. Currently, I struggle every day with the part of me that still wants nothing to do with promotion or even finding a publisher because it thinks it doesn’t want the changes that will take place when all that stuff happens. But I will keep working on it and, with God’s help, will triumph over it in yet another step of spiritual growth, which is, after all, the whole purpose of this life. Because I know that continuing to progress on the journey is the only way to true peace & joy!

Good luck in your journey, & feel free to write me anytime with problems or questions!

God’s love,

Sara

This fact, which it seems to be our human nature to avoid for as long as we can, strikes me as very good evidence that the whole purpose of life is for us to grow spiritually. The poetic genuis Keats put it concisely: the world, he said, is “the vale of soul-making.”

The healing/salvation doesn’t have to mean the person is completely cured of all illness or deformity. In our mission as Jesus’s followers, many times all we can do is demonstrate God’s love & acceptance by loving & accepting & helping the afflicted ourselves; if they feel loved & accepted even momentarily, they will in that small way have had a taste of salvation.

So it’s up to us as Christians to never tire, never cease carrying out our mission of active & radical love & healing.

>>>”Although I had never heard of the modern holiness movement, I understand that it’s an attempt to put Wesley’s teachings about salvation & sanctification into practice, an attempt that I don’t agree with in the first place. I think the whole premise of the holiness movement is flawed in its self-absorbed concern about how holy or how sinful one is. Obsessing about the state of one’s soul seems to me an incredibly arrogant and faithless path to take, and a non-christ-like one at that. It seems clear to me that Jesus was all about LOVE, not sin! He was constantly helping the poor & marginalized, & bringing them the good news that God loves them. Our commission as his followers is to accept the good news and set about spreading it to the world not by going around telling people how sinful they are but by loving them radically with no partiality, as Jesus did. If they then want to become followers themselves, our job is to help them in any way we can, but never to judge that they or others aren’t really saved, much less to worry that we ourselves aren’t holy enough! Our assignment as Christians is to feed the hungry & heal the sick, not to waste our time & energy worrying about holiness.

“In my own work on my book, I’m interested in helping people work on their private relationships to God, as well as their personal transformation into their better selves, but not in the sense of making sure they’re forgiven by God. It seems clear to me that Jesus’s message was that we ARE forgiven and our task is to forgive others, not to worry about whether we’re really forgiven or really saved. We are, and so is everyone else who chooses to accept that fact of God’s love, so the next thing to do is set out spreading that LOVE to others, not going around telling them they’re not really saved or that their beliefs are erroneous. Not only is that approach off-putting & hurtful to those who hear it, but also Christians who get caught up in it are wasting valuable resources as well as sabotaging their own joy! In my view, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” means it’s time for us, empowered by JC’s message of love, to spread the kingdom by spreading love & healing the way he did! Alleviating poverty & hunger & disease are huge tasks that should keep us occupied full-time!

“In my work, I feel called to help people develop their inner spiritual lives & prayer relationships to God for the purpose of furthering their spiritual growth & the transformation of their flaws, which in turn enables them to serve others, which leads them to deep joy. While this process could be described as “perfecting our natures,” it cannot occur in a vacuum. Moreover, I have no interest whatsoever in telling anyone that they aren’t holy enough or that they’re not saved. Surely this is what Jesus meant when he said we were not to judge. And surely salvation is available to all who accept it, whenever they do decide to accept it. They’re more likely to if they see Christians being joyful & loving, which is what _I_ call holy, rather than morose, fearful, & judgmental of others or themselves.

“I think the disconnect you mention in the holiness colleges, where you say the rubber doesn’t hit the ground as far as making a difference in the students’ lives, stems from the simple fact that trying to be “holy” all the time is a way of escaping from life rather than confronting it. I think the mistake of the colleges as well as the whole holiness movement is that this focus on how “holy” & “sinless” one is itself a self-absorbed, fruitless activity that keeps the person from serving the needs of the world, loving others constantly as Jesus taught & modeled. Loving God is fine but it is not complete without loving our neighbors, radically & actively & continually.

“SO, there you have my opinion of the holiness movement, probably more than you bargained for. . . . I think you are wise to recognize the disconnect in the movement, & would be glad to try to offer input that could help them perhaps retool their approach, but as I’ve stated above, I think it is fundamentally flawed. I pray that they (& you) will see the light and learn the joy of using their energy to help heal the world!

Christ’s peace,

Sara”

To be deeply happy we have to accept (& continually re-accept) that life on earth is not meant to make us happy! This doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy earthly happiness when it’s available, but we have to stop expecting it to be available. This is the only rational response to the observation that all earthly happiness is fleeting, and life is difficult, for everyone, everywhere.

To stop expecting earthly happiness to be available is to stop expecting our life circumstances (including people, money & career matters, activities & possessions, & all other life circumstances) to be to our liking. Once we do this, the logical next step is to seek happiness within, by communing with God & our conscience, which is God within each of us.

When we do this we usually find that God, through our conscience, is telling us what we “ought” to do—about any problem that may be bothering us, or simply about life in general. If we then in fact do what this Inner Ought tells us to do, we will have taken a step toward deep happiness. It may not be apparent right away, but have faith, because it will be apparent soon.

The Bible passages about not clinging to your life but giving it up for eternal life, & about storing up for yourself treasures in heaven instead of on earth, apply here. And I write about how I did it in my book, as described elsewhere on this website. (That’s because what I found I really had to do to get my prayers answered was precisely this following of the Inner Ought.) Don’t try to intellectualize it too much, just get in there and start working on your own spiritual growth & relationship to God. Trust me, you will be happier this way.

As always, I am glad to help if you want to email me. It’s the least I can do!

Blessings on you as you seek your God.

Sara

God doesn’t need much himself, just our love. But others, if you’ll only glance around you, need many things all the time. That’s why he gave us the simple commandment to put others first. And it’s why this love, this charity & compassion, is a basic precept of all major religions.

Sadly, many Christians seem to get the emphasis wrong & think they need to worry about their own sins & whether they’re forgiven. But it seems clear to me that Jesus was all about love & very little about sin, which he said we didn’t need to worry about, because as long as we forgive others, we too will be forgiven by God. So all we have to do is accept our acceptance, and then get a move on spreading the kingdom by serving others.

When we do this, we find joy!