Path Upward

True there may be many answers to a prayer, so which is the right one and how do you follow it?

It has been my experience that an answer to a prayer is one that is deeply significant to you. So significant and meaningful to you, in fact, that it engenders action. It galvanizes your attention to focus in the direction that it points.

These kind of answers are not wishy-washy responses like “maybe you could…,” these are answers that lead you onward. And oftentimes these answers are those that give you the courage to go on with the path that you are on. Or, to have a vision of what a possible different life might be like.

As you say, perhaps the follow up action does not take place on the part of the person who receives the advice. But this is really ok, because we can only grow at the rate that we are able to.

When it seems that person does not follow the advice that they receive in a prayer, it is not necessarily because they are lazy or just want to indulge in play. It may very well be that they have many problems that they are faced with. They may not be able to change very easily because they are locked into so many difficulties that it is very hard for them to change without the whole house of cards crashing down.

Such a person might have to change incrementally and may have so many difficult decisions to make that it would be a truly difficult task. As I say we grow when we are ready, and one day they will be ready for that task that they face.

Until then it is best, I think, to have compassion for those with difficulties, and encourage them to have faith in themselves, their abilities and their choices, knowing that they can work through them and grow beyond them.