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Men and women who find themselves in situations of great need, or confronted by problems which render them desperate, or oppressed by sickness, loss of employment, in debt, or involved in circumstances of grave peril, are not to be blamed if they turn for help to the Source of all love. Their prayers are as legitimate as the outcries for help from every child to its mother or father. Their call for relief is pardonable and not improper. But what is unreasonable is the refusal to enquire how far they have themselves contributed to their situation and how much they must themselves do to amend it. The immature child cannot be expected to make such enquiry and its parent may have to do alone everything that is required to help it, but the grown adult has also grown into responsibilities and duties. What I am trying to say is that he must share with the higher power the work of saving himself, a work which begins with examining the past causes of his calamity, goes on to taking present steps off the beaten path on required action, and ends only in resolving on a future character or capacity which will throw out the seeds of such causes. Call this rational prayer, if you like. The act of praying is here neither wildly denounced as being quite useless, a kind of childish talking to oneself, nor foolishly praised as being the right way out of all troubles.

-- Notebooks Category 18: The Reverential Life > Chapter 2 : Prayer > # 84