The sudden advent of a whole new mode of communication with spirits during
my 1 April 1964 attempt to write a letter to Scott surprised me. Automatic
writing. Clear text. Excellent message. Good spirit. No interference. How
did that happen?
The absence of interference might have been due to the fact I was working
alone; no one else was there to attract a variety of spirits. But that was
not the only factor. I had crumpled up several sheets of paper because I
was not getting anywhere by writing alone. It happened as soon as I acted
on a thought that popped into my mind: Help God help Scott.
I decided it must have been this change in my idea of prayer that automatically
tuned me to good spirits and opened me to the clearest message I had yet
received.
Then I took another look at the statement, "My personal purpose is
not get, give," and realized that most of my prayers were in fact to
get something rather than to give something--a more or less polite way of
saying, "Please gimme what I want" or "Please do what I want
You to do." My prayers did not conform to my purpose.
And I remembered that a good spirit named Liri had said, Help God. Give
greatly.
To help God is a radically different approach to prayer. It starts
by assuming that God wants people to be helped, and asks Him how to help
a specific person, as His servant or agent or instrument: "Please let
me know what You want me to do for this person." It also requires that
we actually focus our own love on that person as we pray--and then, as demonstrated
to me on 1 April 1964, it works.
I resolved to continue practicing this approach to prayer, because it is
apparently a key to the Kingdom of Heaven, but it takes a pivotal change
of personal theology. Instead of asserting that God is omnipotent and begging
Him to do what we want done, it assumes that God needs our help in order
to do what He wants done. Rather than serving God like courtiers bowing
and scraping before an oriental potentate, it envisions approaching Him
for guidance and then being sent away from Him to implement His guidance.
And yet this is the theology of the New Testament. God does not do everything
by Himself. He sends forth those who obey Him, to do what He wants done--and
this is how any kingdom actually functions. Jesus said he was sent from
God to seek and to save the lost. He also said to his apostles, "As
the Father has sent me, even so I send you." The whole New Testament
concept of ministry is filled with these three verbs: to send, to seek,
to save.
Apparently this is a mechanism that God works through: our own desire to
help Him help others, two-way prayer for guidance, and free-will decision.
Thus He guides His servants to benefit others and helps His servants, too.
Good comes of it. All benefit.