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We all feel so blessed and so grateful that Joel’s classes were recorded, and that we can hear the message of The Infinite Way exactly as it was given by the revelator. Joel began recording his classes in 1950, well before tape recording was commonplace. How did this come about? Joel tells the story toward the end of the class that is given on tape 605, Side 1, as an illustration of the nature of true prayer.
“Therefore, true prayer is a state of receptivity in which we so open consciousness that we permit the Christ to come in and take over, and from then on live our lives for us. It then goes before us to make the crooked places straight. It then goes out and makes our contacts for us. It then draws to us everything and everybody necessary to our experience and to our unfoldment, and It does it in a much better way than we can ever plan it.
I was explaining that the other day in a very good illustration that we have right here in this work. I came to Portland, probably a year or more ago, to speak with Mrs. Clough right here at this center, and if I had tried to tell God what I wanted, I would never have thought of the most important thing that came to me on that trip because I didn’t know anything about it … I couldn’t have prayed for it or affirmed it or denied it. … But a good came out of that trip that is serving a purpose now in many places in the world … and honestly and truly, I wouldn’t have known how to pray for it or affirm it, for I didn’t know of its existence. It came out of the blue.
Fortunately, my prayer was then as it is now: ‘Father, fulfill Thyself.’ So when I came to the center on my first evening, Mrs. Clough asked if I would mind if Mr. Lewis took down the talk on a tape recorder. I hadn’t even heard of a tape recorder or known anything about its function. So I just asked that these tapes not be used without my permission or editing. Mr. Lewis agreed, and he took it down. I want you to know that those tapes are out in Hawaii right now, and some of them are in Los Angeles, and some are in Canada. And before these next few months are over, tapes taken from our Portland and Seattle lectures will be all over the United States, Hawaii, and Canada, and all because I didn’t have enough wisdom to know how to pray to avoid it, I guess …
That was something that came by the grace of God … and I couldn’t have prayed for it, and I couldn’t have affirmed for it, and I couldn’t have denied, and I couldn’t have asked God, because it was something so totally unknown to me. It was as unknown to me as atomic power was unknown to you a few years ago … It walked right in by Grace, and it is serving wonderful purposes. I wish you could hear the comments on those tapes out in Hawaii, where I left nine of them, and the comments from Los Angeles, where they’ve been heard, and from San Francisco and Palo Alto …
A new way of teaching truth has opened. A new way of presenting truth, a new way, a mode and means of presenting truth, has opened. Through what? Through the ability to be receptive so that when a new idea was presented, there was a receptivity to it … The door was opened because my prayer was opening consciousness to whatever form of good God sends, even if it’s one that I didn’t know anything about.
Now, just in that little illustration you have what I mean by prayer. You may think that you know what would be good for you tomorrow or for the balance of this year, but I can assure you of this – that God has good for us that we couldn’t dream of and wouldn’t have the nerve to ask for or affirm for. If only we could drop that limited sense of our own desire; that limited sense of our own wants; and open consciousness in a sense of prayer that would merely be receptivity: ‘I’m opening myself now, Father. You fill me. You fill me in Your way, in Your time, with Your wish.’”
What a wonderful lesson for us!
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