If I Were Going to Pray 4

If I were going to pray, knowing what I wanted to pray about, I would "investigate all things." That is a line from The Great Learning by Confucius. I know that what I am going to pray about is God's remaining excellence AFTER my problem is solved. But what is that? What all will it consist of?

Neville asks, "What would it be like if it were true?" What would you see, what would you hear, what would you feel? Neville was drafted into the Army during World War II. He did not want anything to do with it. He imagined what would it be like for him if he were home with his wife and baby girl, honorably discharged from the Army and not on furlough going to return to the Army? Determining what that would be like, he experienced it all in his imagination, giving it "all the tones of reality."

All the tones. The concomitant emotions, senses, feelings, sensations. The things in his apartment he saw and felt. He looked out the window to the park and the street below. Home. Secure and lasting.

R. H. Jarrett directs in IT WORKS to write down a list of things desired to review three or more times a day. Well, if it is just a list to you, you will probably have at the end just a list. The things in the list you need to investigate to the fullest. Colors, textures, times, costs, compensation, scents, sensations, emotions--if you can think of the remaining excellence as it would be, imagine the whole ball of wax. Give it all the tones of reality, of the real experience as though it were real--everything that goes with it. Be it real unto you. Praise God for it, and be thankful. Isn't it wonderful?