Sam Shoemaker had something to say about prayer:

Many people will tell you they have given up faith: they prayed
for something they wanted, and it did not come--so either there
is no God, or else He is not interested in them. What childish
nonsense! ..... Prayer is not telling God what we want, it is
putting ourselves at His disposal so that He can tell us what
He wants. Prayer is not meant to try to change the will of God,
it is meant to find the will of God, to align or realign ourselves
with His purposes for His world and for us. That is why it is at
least as important for us to listen as to speak in prayer.

-- Samuel M. Shoemaker

If you're wondering who Sam Shoemaker is, that's not unusual. It's interesting that more folks in Twelve Step fellowships don't know who he is, or what he did for us.

Bill W. calls him a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous; he was heavily involved with (some say the "leader" of) the Oxford Groups in the US while Bill and Bob were working inside of that fellowship, before the drunks went out on their own.

This quote from him, referencing what the very purpose of prayer is, contains the incredibly simple, subtle - and overlooked - essential idea: we don't pray to ask God to change HIS mind. We pray to ask God to change OUR mind.

"...asking only for knowledge of His will, and the power to carry that out".

We're not praying for a new car, or rain to end the drought, or world peace - we're not asking him to change our circumstances. We're praying in order to create a connection by which God can change our inner state.

In fact, this very idea kind of tosses the whole "pray for the people that you resent" idea out on its ear - while simultaneously validating the basic notion behind the intention of the prayer. In that story in the Big Book, the evangelist says that we are supposed to ask God to change another person's life - in the ways that we would want our own life changed - but the avowed purpose is to change our own internal state. (Of course, what seems to be the hoped-for goal to be achieved in this practice is that we will be able to get rid of the resentment without having to actually go through those awful inventory, confession and restitution Steps; for some reason, folks who like to talk about that prayer forget to mention that the women who wrote the story said that she had already been through those Steps without relief).

I find it interesting that none of the prayers listed in the Big Book (that I can think of, anyway) ever say anything about changing the outside world - not any part of it - not even our own state. There's not even any prayer mentioned to remove the compulsion or desire to drink or overeat; it's all about going through a process and arriving at the result - a spiritual awakening, one of the results of which being that the booze/food is no longer an issue.

Indeed, none of the Steps themselves ever talk about asking God to add anything to our spiritual selves - they are aimed, instead, at removing the blocks to the awareness of His presence:

"...deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there."

We don't have to have anything added - we're already complete. "The gift of God was made at the foundation of the Earth". He's already inside of each of us. His Will already lives here - all we have to do is get the garbage out of the way, so that we can then ask - not for His Will - but for knowledge of His will.

And the power to carry that out - hmmm....Sounds like a good subject for another post : )