LAWS OF THE KINGDOM

Of course praying is not of the slightest use while any of God’s laws relating to the subject prayed for are being violated. What you had better ask for Florence is that she may have some convictions on the question of health. Tell her she might just as well expect to have prayer keep her hand from being burned if she were to hold it in the fire as to be kept well while violating the laws that regulate her health. The trouble is ignorance. We are just like babies with fire. They do not know that it is an inevitable law of fire to burn, and they are very surprised and hurt when they put their fingers in the pretty flame. You are right about doing being a kind of praying. It certainly is the highest type of communion and the kind the Lord values the most. One of His very little noticed words is, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” There is common sense in this. For in the nature of things I cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven in regard to any matter, health or anything else, unless I obey the laws of that kingdom. And in praying my idea is that by means of it we are brought into harmony with those laws as we get to understand them. Praying does open people’s “top eyes,” slowly perhaps but surely. And I believe if F. prays definitely for health, she will begin to have convictions. —To Daughter Mary, December 8, 1882