Here it is clear that the Lord’s
praying consisted in a talking to
the Divine, which then brought a
response, which when it comes from
God is a revelation. Prayer is of utmost
importance, because it is what makes
it possible for God and His Divine
qualities to come into our hearts and
minds. Prayer opens the door of our
mind to His love and wisdom which
we so much need. Vital spiritual things
do happen when we pray.
In response to prayer there is inflow into the perception or thought of the
person’s mind, which effects a certain opening of his inward region towards
God. . . . If his prayer springs from love and faith and if they are entirely
heavenly and spiritual things about which and for which he prays, something
like a revelation is present within his prayer which manifests itself in the
affection of the person praying in the form of hope, comfort or some inward
joy. (Arcana Coelestia 2535)
What this comes down
to is that without
prayer, the door to
repenting and becoming
a genuinely spiritual
person is not open.
Our Prayers Only Open the Way
When we have this blessed answer to our prayers it seems as if we ourselves
have stirred the Lord to help us, but the reality is otherwise:
It appears as if human thoughts, from a person on earth or from a spirit, move
the Lord, when yet all things to the very least flow in from the Lord, thus into
the person, not from the person. For I am taught that the fact is that when the life
of the Lord flows into a subject fitted to receive, heaven is moved, because the order
is complete, and the receiving vessel is fitted, so to speak, to receive. It is different
when it is not fitted, for then the qualities flowing in cannot operate.” (Spiritual
Experiences 2960, emphasis added)
Here is what happens to us when we pray genuinely – when we pray for
something, yet ultimately still have what is spiritual and heavenly in view. We
are then lifted up into a higher realm, and in this realm, which is in the spiritual
world, we unconsciously interact with others, and through them God the
Messiah, the Lord our Savior, affects us. We can see this in what Swedenborg
writes in Spiritual Experiences 210, under the heading: About general fields
arising from everything in the Kingdom of God the Messiah. Note what he says
about what happened to him when he was praying the Lord’s Prayer:
Nothing more amazing and unbelievable can be told than that there are
seemingly general realms or fields of those properties which constitute God the
Messiah’s Kingdom, that interact with those in human minds, both the more
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