How to Get Guidance Through Prayer

Needing some guidance this week about an issue that was bugging me, I went to prayer. I asked the All-That-Is to make the truth clear to me for the situation I was looking at.

My best time to pray is after meditation time. Or sometimes the prayer comes spontaneously in the middle of the meditation—my heart is taken by the prayer and it is spoken in heart-call language to the One.

Sometimes this heart-call language is in the form of words. Sometimes it is a squeezing of my heart, where the contents are merged with the Ground-of-Being. Am I pouring out my heart or is my heart being filled? It’s some combination of both. Whatever it is, the communion has taken place and the movement of my prayer is complete.

Then I let go, trusting that I’ll get my guidance, maybe today or next week. Maybe next month or sometime… My job is to notice it when it comes.

Of course, there is the more messy prayer, where I can’t feel my connection to The Presence. So, I fake it as sincerely as I can, surrendering myself in the muddle. And this is ok too.

Can I trust this prayer even though I don’t feel the movement, even though I feel blocked? I try.

Anyway, this time the answer to the prayer came in a dream in the wee-hours of the morning. The dream almost slipped away upon waking. But I saw it and said, “Hey! I just had that dream.” And that thought brought the dream back to my waking-consciousness. Cool.

The dream was clear. All is well. My spiritual teacher is coming to stay tomorrow. Our room will be the guest room. He will sleep in our bed and my husband was right, we need to change the sheets… even though fresh ones were put on last night.

Of course, dreams often make no sense to others. So the dream is not the point. The point is noticing.

Noticing is everything. In noticing, I am awake. In noticing, Life can play with me better. In noticing, I can receive the answer to the prayer.