Worry

"Worry is like praying for what you don't want."
- unknown

"I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened."
- Mark Twain

A daily blog I receive recently featured on different days the two quotes above on "worry."  The first one especially caught my attention and spawned the question, "How often am I praying and don't realize that's what I'm doing?

The vast majority of wisdom / spiritual / religious teachings and literature through the ages and from numerous cultures and traditions all contain elements of reaping and sowing, of cause and effect that can be stated in the simple cyclical formula: experience=thought=action=habit=experience.   Another way to put it would be, the way we respond to our experience creates our experience.

So what does this have to do with prayer?   Prayer, without it's various formal religious contexts, concepts and rituals could be the process just described.  It could be our consciousness perceiving, engaging, and communicating with a greater consciousness which seems to be outside us, yet at the same time in which we participate.  And our participation shapes our reality.

In the Christian tradition, Jesus says,   "Do not worry about your life." and "Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."  The Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Thessalonians, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."   

Regardless of the circumstances of our life we always have choice, and in many ways the choices we make are the prayers of our lives.  One of these choices is between "worry" and "hope."

Depending on our choice, we may too often be praying for the exact opposite of what we truly desire.