Your Attitude in Prayer

The most important thing in prayer is the attitude of the person who is praying. 

The most essential part is your commitment to go forward without any reservation.

If there is anything that is trying to block you from praying, you have to be decided that it will never stop you. Unless you have this kind of commitment to continue, God will not waste His time trying to help you.

God has trusted many people of faith in the past to accomplish His will and He has been disappointed and deceived.  He has been looking for proof of what you are made of and how strong your commitment is.

You may tell God that you are completely committed and will do whatever it takes and never quit.  But He would just shake His head and say that He will wait for at least three years to see.  If God sees that something isn't quite right within you, He will wait before sending His help.

God has to be absolutely sure.

If God was to just freely give out His help and at the end of several years the person is broken into pieces, it would make God foolish.


 If I were God I would also wait and see. Suppose you were God; what would you do? You may tell God, "You see I am living as a church member and I will die as one." Then God will notice and look more closely.


No matter how firm your prayer is, without this basic commitment nothing will happen and you will be wasting your time.  This is where the decisive attitude is the key.


Do you think I made a commitment to God that I would never change, not for fifty years or the rest of my life? I prayed first for the absolute faith which could say, "Even if not a single person in this world can believe, I will believe and follow in whatever incredible course You give me." Second, I asked for absolute knowledge and wisdom. Third, I asked for absolute love. I prayed for these three things throughout my life, and now in looking back I see that they have been fulfilled, even when I didn't know it was happening. 

There is no other power that could go beyond the boundary of race and nation. 

With this absolute wisdom, the Divine Principle and the truth about the world was the result of an arduous search.

The attitude of absoluteness is the basis for everything.

Nowadays, some worry that they are getting too old to marry and have children.  This kind of attitude shows that your absolute commitment is starting to shake.  Instead of shrinking under this challenge, you should have the thought that even if you are not married yet, it does not bother you or change your commitment.

When you are faced with great problems and agony, once these challenges are overcome, your faith will be iron hard.

When you are able to see the obstacles that are blocking you path, you are able to clear the field.

Since God could give me this absolute wisdom, I could search and find the Divine Principle and the truth about the world.

What if along this road, you were very much in love with your husband or wife, but they suddenly die.  Will heaven and earth crumble for you?

This could be the very moment that you would curse God for taking your loved one away.  But what if instead you were able to thank Him for giving you a situation that will strengthen your faith?   Then you faith will become stronger instead of weaker.

God is a parent who loves His children.  If He takes a loved one away, it is not because He hates you and wants to see you suffer, but it is for a greater reason.  If you are able to accept and digest this situation, and have faith in that purpose, then you are ready for another challenge.

In this movement the most beautiful word to our ears is 'indemnity'.

Through paying indemnity, we can pay for the debt of our sins and our ancestors.  Many mistakenly believe that because Jesus died on the cross for our sins that all sins here and in the future have been  eradicated through the cross.

This is incorrect.

If that was true, when Jesus died on the cross, every child born thereafter would have been born without sin and without need for redemption.  Yet, you and I were born with sin and continue this stained lineage.

Jesus paved a way for each person to come to God to be forgiven of their sins.  We still have a mountain of sin we inherit on the individual level, family,/ancestral love and so on that needs to be paid for.

We are living in the Completed Testament age where all the sins of the past are being completely erased through paying indemnity while humanity steps one foot closer to God's ideal world of Heaven on Earth.  God is asking you as His champion to pay indemnity because no one can stand such a burden..

Accept indemnity with a thankful heart. 

When you compare the time on earth that you are apart from you loved one with the millions of years your descendants will live,  your payment of indemnity is small compared to the huge blessing God will give your descendants.

If in fact, the death of your spouse was an accident, and was not a direct intervention of God, but you are still able to have a grateful attitude God will feel that you are an extraordinary child and His blessing will automatically be yours.

Your attitude will decide the amount of blessing. 

Are you ready?

If an extraordinary grief or tragedy hits you, are you ready to thank God and ask what is next?

When you understand the law of indemnity, you know that you cannot only accept the pleasant situations and then curse God during the most unpleasant events.  With this knowledge about indemnity, there should be nothing that you cannot bear.  This is the attitude of those who truly know God.

When you first join the church your eyes are filled with such fervor and hope, but as the years pass on they get a little duller.  What about in ten years?  It is easy to say that you have the same enthusiasm, but do you really have the confidence?

Prayer is an absolute necessity. 

It is important to first make an environment of serious commitment before praying.

If you do not have this basic attitude, no amount of prayer and tears will suffice.  Many in the Christian world pray everyday.  Do you think that they pray for the Christian churches to decline?  Of course they pray for the churches to prosper, but the churches are crumbling anyway.

Prayer is very powerful, thus there is a disconnect between their prayers and God.

We should pray for the big things: the nation, the world and the liberation of God.

This way you are praying for an even bigger cross than your own church.

If you only pray for smaller things than the church, God will not answer because He is not interested in listening to such boring prayers.  When you pray for the nation and the world, God takes notice and will want to help.

This way of prayer is training for how to love greater things.  If you live this way of life, then God will still back you up even if you do not have time to pray.

In churches today, people pray for their denominations, their Social Security check or their family problems and their pet. God's ears hurt when He hears those prayers and He will plug His ears. It would be the equivalent of a child begging their parents every moment for some candy.

When you only talk about yourself in your prayer, God is thoroughly bored and nothing will happen. But if you pray for His righteousness and His kingdom, He will be caught up in your passion.

In order to fulfill bigger things you need an adventurous mind and be willing to take risks.

When you work for larger goals, you will not have to worry because God will be right behind you.  If you work hard to overcome the stonewalls and persecution standing in your way, God will take up your battle for you.

God is able to distinguish who is just and who is unjust.

God would wait and give you a chance to knock down your opponent with your own might before He rushes in to help.  This is the same thing a father and mother would do for their children.

If you were to run to your parents first before confronting your enemy, God, like any parent would be ashamed to hear your complaints and will send you back out again.

Create a good problem: be a heavenly troublemaker instead.

I came to America and became a good troublemaker, and that's why America doesn't like me. America has built a prosperous society, but I came to shake this nation and Americans resent my disturbing their peace.  But I did not come to destroy America, only to warn this nation that there is danger ahead. 


Someone has to warn the people of America and bring them out of disaster.  We must prepare ourselves for this big battle.  After you go first, then you can ask God to come and help you with any area you lack.

Then God will say, "Go ahead, I am right behind you."

In those circumstances, if you sit down and pray with seriousness, then God will encourage you.  When God finally has proof of your commitment, an avalanche will come to you.


I have had the experience of thinking about some problem and not even praying about it, but already God knew my thoughts and went one step ahead of me. When I discovered that my thinking had been fulfilled, He smiled and said, "See what I did?"

You need the basic attitude of sincerity as a foundation of prayer. 

If you do not exhibit this basic attitude, then no prayer will work.  To create this atmosphere, you should serve one more person, knock on one more door, receive more persecution for restoration.

That would be more valuable than sitting in a dark room for hours praying.

Praying is only needed only after you have exerted all of your energy into a cause and it was still not enough.  Then at that time you can ask God to come help.  When you can do the mission on your own, then you don't have to ask God for help, and you can tell Him to relax.

The prayer for all seasons is the prayer for God's kingdom and His righteousness.

Does God pray sometimes?

When a parent, without thinking, will whisper to themselves that they wish their son would do this or that.  That is God's prayer also.  He prays about you and me because we are living in a time of emergency and He is engrossed in His concern.

That is God's prayer.

You do not even have to sit down and pray.  You can just murmur as you go.  That is prayer.  In our case, praying and doing is the way of life and praying and waiting is not life.

If you pray unconsciously throughout your daily life, then you undoubtedly are becoming sons and daughters of prayer.

If you give your last ounce of energy but it is not enough, then ask God for assistance and your prayer will be answered.

If this was not the case, how could we have the ability to subjugate Satan?

Satan has caused unending anguish and heartbreak to God for over six thousand years.  If there was no way to finally subjugate Satan, then there would be no end to this hell.

But God has made a way for us to overcome this evil world of darkness.

The power of prayer works wonders.  But when you pray, you must be serious and pray with one united hear, not a heart divided.

How serious is it to pick your own spouse?

It is dead serious, but prayer is even more serious than that.  At the moment your parents are on your death bed is a serious moment, and the words  you speak then are urgent. You will not doze at that time.  Your prayer has to be even more serious this moment in picking your spouse.

Prayer is like a covenant between you and God, a promise. 

Once you make this contract through prayer you follow through and without a doubt, God will fulfill it.

This is the attitude you should have through prayer.

You should not be disappointed that your prayer is not answered immediately.  Some answers come late.  As well, as you should not be overjoyed when your prayer is answered quickly.  That is not necessarily the best thing either.

The answer to prayer does not come from you, but down from heaven and it takes time to reach you.

You are surrounded by the world where there are many stages to go through horizontally and vertically.  There were many foolish people who received answers to their prayers up to a certain point, but who didn't go to the final inch.  They gave up when they were not satisfied and betrayed God.

When you pray for the world you may not see things changing immediately around you, but far away the communist world starts to crumble. 

Your prayer may be felt in a far-away place.  You must think that your prayer might not reach you today or be fulfilled for thousands of years from now.


I pray such prayers. I am not praying just for this world today; I am praying for 1,000 and 2,000 years from now. If that prayer makes a bridge between that time and now, then the Unification Church will continue to flourish even a long time after I am gone from the earth. That kind of prayer is needed.


What if everyone was to pray that kind of prayer?

That kind of eternal prayer would shake the world and the impact would be far reaching.  Prayer, sweat and tears would be the root of that prayer, and out of it beautiful flowers will blossom. When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, he was deadly serious.

All day long, you should be in prayer mindset, not just one hour, but 24 hours.

What prayer position do you prefer?

The best position is to kneel and bow your head  Restrict your body's freedom as though it were bound.

You will feel pain, but overcome it because you must be serious in your prayer.  This is necessary for prayer. Then God will know your serious attitude.

If Jesus and other saints did not pray, they would not have been able to carry out the great things that has impacted the world.  When you resort to the power of prayer, you can have hope because you never know when the fulfillment will come.



Return for Tomorrow's Post: The Power of Prayer

This post was rewritten and derived from the speech The Importance of Prayer

Why Arranged Marriages Work

The movie below is an endearing movie about an arranged marriage during World War II that is realistic.  It gives an example of how two strangers who are committed to one another can fall in love after marriage. The interview that follows was featured on the Unification website recently because the teachings which this blog is based on supports arranged marriages.  I have personally known hundreds of individuals who have arranged marrriages that are American and live in America and have lasted over 20 to 30 years.  What I found personally is that when two people, even with different backgrounds, have the same goals, values and wants for the future, they will sacrfice their selfish needs for the whole - their family.  Unification Thought and the Divine Principle which is discussed throughout this blog teaches that individuals should live for the family and family lives for the sake of the society and society for the nation which will lead to world peace.  Instead, humanity chose to live for its own sake and chose their own brides and the world went in the opposite direction.  An arranged marriage is the ultimate sacrifice for an individual's next step, as it is solely done for the sake of their future family.  How many of us have made the wrong choices in relationships and keep going to another.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could take a step back from what an individual places in front of us as great and see all sides of this person, and put on the table what they bring to the relationship beyond good looks?  Who does that - who has the time to evaluate someone before they delve into a deep relationship or even marriage?  With divorce so easily accepted, we have gone from a society that lives for their children to people who will try someone out and divorce if it doesn't go the way they thought.  What does this have to do with world peace?  World peace starts with one person who learns love through family interactions.  The world is not made up of land, the society isn't made up of buildings, it is made up of people.  Families.  Just look at the beginning.  The whole world came to ruin by the very first parents and sons on earth.  There was infidelity and murder in the first of God's children set on earth.  To turn it around, God needs families to live for one another beyond selfish interest of a spouse that looks good.  The following interview gives insight into why more Americans are deciding to take this route through their religions and new traditions such as the Unification Church and the Mormons. It speaks about the science of love and how love can happen after marriage to create a strong bond.  Also, the studies conducted on love marriages and arranged marriages and how love grew or faded over time.

Dr. Robert Epstein Jack LaValley LaValley: Welcome, Dr. Epstein. I was very inspired to learn that you were exploring ways in which love can arise outside of romantic relationships, with which westerners are mostly involved. I myself was involved in an arranged marriage, and I happen to believe that the principles and insights within the culture of arranged marriages can make a significant contribution to people who want to be successful in their relationships. So, when I found your research about arranged marriages combined with your behavioral studies, studying how people can learn how to love, I felt the call to reach out to you and have an opportunity to learn from your research, which could really help people at this time. I want to start with the “science” part. Through the research that you’ve done, you say that science can help us fall in love. Could you tell us what you mean by that? Dr. Epstein: I mean two different things. As a scientist, I have been studying how love arises in arranged marriages, and I’ve been trying to figure out how that happens. It doesn’t happen in every arranged marriage, but it happens. Sometimes people are very conscious of wanting to build love over time. In Indian culture for example, they say, “First comes marriage, then comes love.” So, there is a consciousness there that it is possible to build love. I’ve been studying this by interviewing people in arranged marriages, having them fill out certain forms and analyzing the data. The other part is that for decades western researchers have been studying processes in which emotional bonds are created. In the laboratory, you can actually get two total strangers to suddenly like each other or even love each other in just a few minutes by putting them through various exercises. We don’t have to leave our love lives entirely to chance. We can do A and B all the way up to Z and be very deliberate about building love in our relationships. There’s a huge advantage to figuring this out, because this means that there’s a possibility for us in the West, for the first time in hundreds of years, to actually get together with someone who’s suitable for us and build love over time with that person. LaValley: I’m sure everybody wants to make the right choice and have it work out the first time. You said that in various exercises and activities people were able to experience feelings of love. Could you give us a couple examples of what happened and how that manifested? Dr. Epstein: I did a course a few years ago at the University of California in San Diego that was on this topic, and I thought it would be fun for the students to see how this process of deliberately building love works. So, I would bring people up to the front of the room in pairs or I would ask people in the audience to turn to their neighbor and do the exercises. In every exercise I asked the students, “On a scale of one to ten, how much do you like this person, how much do you love this person, how much are you attracted to this person, how close do you feel to this person?” We’d get the numbers before we’d do the exercise, then after the exercise. The results were just spectacular. The simplest exercise of all, I called “soul-gazing.” You simply look very deeply into the person’s eyes and you try to look past the flesh, deep into the person’s soul. Doing that for just two minutes dramatically increases the four measures of emotional bonding. You can actually get people to feel much closer to someone in just two minutes. So that’s the simplest of the exercises. You can get bigger results with other exercises. LaValley: Did any of the students in the exercise fall in love with each other and get married? [Laugh] R: I didn’t really track that for this particular course, but it turns out that in the published literature on this topic, the very first couple [that participated in such an experiment] by this researcher named Arthur Aaron fell in love and got married. So I have no doubt that I created a lot of deep, long-term relationships in that course. LaValley: That’s very interesting. You mention in your study of arranged marriages cases in which love has grown over time. You mentioned a few elements you found. Could you talk about those? The Power of Commitment Dr. Epstein: I’ve done two studies now on people in arranged marriages. In the first one, I ask them open-ended questions just to get them to talk. This was an exploratory study on my part; no one’s ever looked at how love arises in arranged marriages. We do know that when it does arise it might even be more stable than the kind of love that emerges in love marriages. There’s a very interesting study done in India comparing the love in “love” marriages to the love in arranged marriages that found something quite spectacular. In the love marriages, there’s a lot of love at first, but then it weakens over time. In arranged marriages, there’s not that much love at first, but it tends to grow over time, and it surpasses the love in the love marriages about five years out. Ten years out it’s twice as strong. So, in my first study I simply ask people in arranged marriages, “How much did you love your spouse when you got married? How much do you love him or her now? What do you think happened that made the love grow?” The second study is more rigorous and is mainly conducted online at a website called arrangedmarriagesurvey.com. In this study we’re comparing 36 different factors that might contribute to the growth of love over time. In both studies, the biggest result or insight we got was that commitment is a factor that seems most responsible for the growth of love. That has to mean real commitment, not the kind we so often make in our marriages here, almost as if we’re keeping our fingers crossed behind our backs. Real commitment meaning, “I’m really going to be with you through thick and thin, through sickness and in health.” This has led me to develop a theory called the Vulnerability Theory of Emotional Bonding. These factors make people feel vulnerable to the other person and two people feeling vulnerable at the same time brings them together. So the reason commitment is so powerful in creating an emotional bond is because it’s the ultimate expression of vulnerability. When you make a strong commitment to be with someone no matter what, what you’re saying is, “I am entirely vulnerable to you. No matter what is happening, I will be there for you.” And if two people are making that kind of expression of commitment to each other, that brings people very close, and if they each live up to the commitment, that brings them even closer over time. I was interviewing a highly-educated woman from Pakistan and I said to her, “On a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest and ten is the highest, how in love were you with your husband the day you got married?” She said, “Zero.” I asked, “How in love are you with him now?” and she said, “Eleven.” I asked, “How long have you been married?” and she said, “45 years.” Keeping Expectations Realistic LaValley: I want to flesh this out a little more. People go before a priest or rabbi or minister and read the vows that explicitly state, “Through sickness and in health, for better or for worse,” but do they actually not know how to make the commitment? Do people not know what that means when they enter into marriage and utter those words? Dr. Epstein: Close to 50 percent of first marriages fail. Two thirds of second marriages fail, and almost three-quarters of third marriages fail. Practice doesn’t help us, apparently. You have to realize that when people utter those words, they actually mean them – at the moment. Generally speaking, people have high hopes when they’re going into it. Where it all falls apart is in regards to expectations that people have in marriages. The notion that we get from movies and fairytales and novels say that love lasts forever, that the person you marry is the one, your soul mate and that you live happily ever after. We have the notion that the good feelings will continue. All those expectations are wrong. People I’ve interviewed in arranged marriages laugh at us, because we’re so naïve about what happens over time in a relationship. We go in with very unrealistic expectations and in a few years we’re disappointed, our expectations have not been met, and we often say, “I made a mistake, and you’re just the wrong person.” We wake up one day and we say, “Who are you?” or “You’ve changed.” And that’s all nonsense. First of all, if we went in with the realistic expectation that we actually have to do some work to keep the relationship going and make it strong over time, that would help a lot. The other issue is that we’re so blinded with love at first, we really don’t know the person we’re marrying. The strong emotions that we have sometimes make us blind to the characteristics of our partner. LaValley: Arranged marriages usually take place in religious environments, with people of the same faith, and they know that they’re going to get married because they want to have children, they expect love to grow in the family context and they’re often not overly fantasizing about what it’s all supposed to look like. They’re more practical and down to earth in some respect. Dr. Epstein: I agree completely. They have much more realistic expectations heading into it. Very often, because they’re immersed in a certain community, they have role models around them. Sometimes the parents are in successful arranged marriages themselves. And they have the support from that religious community or cultural niche that they’re in. So, there are a lot of factors regarding why they’re almost certainly going to do better than love marriages. [One survey said that] in India, roughly 90 percent of the people were arranged, and the country had one of the lowest divorce rates in the world, even though divorce was legal there. I do not believe that in the U.S. we’re ready to embrace arranged marriage, but I do think we can learn a lot from what happens in successful arranged marriages. Marriage: An Adventure in Getting To Know Each Other LaValley: You say in the West we fail partly because we enter into relationships with poor skills for maintaining them, and we have highly unrealistic expectations. We pick unsuitable partners, mistakenly believing that we are “in love” simply because we feel physical attraction. In a way it seems almost to be a cruel trick of nature. Without these chemicals’ beings released and these euphoric highs, many people wouldn’t feel attracted to begin with, but when they do, they want to bond. But what you’re saying is that’s essentially part of the problem. Dr. Epstein: It does seem like cruel trick. Here’s this person that makes butterflies in your stomach and that person’s not a good partner for you. Those butterflies mislead you. I spent several years developing a test of compatibility; it’s online now at areyougoodtogether.com. It’s the most comprehensive compatibility test that’s ever been developed and it’s possible for two people who like each other or are in love to take the test. I’ve taken it with my wife, with four ex-girlfriends, and it’s very illuminating, because it shows you where your partner does and does not meet your most important relationship needs. It gets things right on the table, right up front, right now. Sometimes you’re with the wrong person, sometimes you’re with someone with potential but there are road blocks. You have to make a plan and fight the demons that might destroy your relationship. LaValley: But that requires a certain level of maturity and consciousness where both partners can actually sit down and have that sort of give and take. I think that goes back to how two people who are in love with each other go about making a commitment. You said it’s more than just uttering the words at the altar. There needs to be time spent beforehand getting to know each other. Dr. Epstein: Yes, but also the recognition that when you make a marriage commitment, that process of getting to know the person is going to continue. You have to understand that people keep changing, people are very complex, and that process is going to continue. For one couple I had in my study, one reason their love is developing over time is because they’re committed to getting to know each other. That’s partly what their marriage has been – an adventure in getting to know each other. And I really like that image. Again, we have these illusions that we’re in love because we know the other person. That’s simply not true. There’s actually laboratory research about people who are deeply in love and who are blind to the very important characteristics of the other person. LaValley: Speaking for myself, it’s harder for me to know me. Dr. Epstein: Exactly. That’s so well put. Over the course of our own lives we’re learning about ourselves. Eastern Practices vs. Western Practices LaValley: Some authors and researchers talk about this primary fantasy many people have, and if they’re not able to get beyond that fantasy, as you were saying earlier, it’s very likely that the relationship will go through hard times. [The primary fantasy is a term that refers to the idea that there will be a certain type of person who will magically appear in one’s life with whom the subject will fall in love and remain in love forever.] Dr. Epstein: But I think there are solutions here to these problems. If you think back to the 1950s, 1960s, generally speaking, we knew nothing about eastern methods of meditation and yoga and tai chi, and so we had very limited ways in which we could work on our wellbeing and peace of mind. One of the main ways was drinking alcohol, actually – we had few, positive, constructive ways of altering our wellbeing. But groups like the Beatles and the Beach Boys brought pieces of eastern culture into western culture, wonderful techniques for creating a sense of wellbeing. We didn’t adopt the religion, the culture – we adopted the practices. I think we can learn from successful arranged marriages and adopt the practices. We can use our heads a little bit more, looking beyond just the physical characteristics, and then we can develop skills and an awareness that can help us not only keep love going but also make love deeper over time. LaValley: I completely support that perspective. I want the romanticism that involves men and women coming together in love, and I also want it to be deeply rooted, so it’s able to grow over time. My wife and I entered into our relationship with shared expectations, similar values and compatible world views. Some of these insights and lessons that arranged marriages can teach us are deeply embedded within the cultural context that’s still very unfamiliar to westerners. But I think pulling those things out and putting them in a way that people can get their heads around can really benefit the enterprise of marriage significantly. Dr. Epstein: I feel very strongly that this can be done, and I have found some ways to get the word out. In 2010, Maria Shriver invited me to be one of the speakers at a conference of 14,000 women. Michelle Obama spoke there and so did Oprah Winfrey. Maria herself entitled my talk “It’s Time To Take Control Over Your Love Life.” I focused on what I call the “last form of empowerment for women,” because women have made a lot of progress in education and in the work domain, but still are victims to fairytales and fantasies that end up hurting them and their families. I asked the women to believe in a better fantasy, which is that you can take control over your love life, you can be with someone you’re compatible with, and the two of you can build love that will actually get stronger over the years. I become more convinced over the years that this can be done, and it would help millions of people create a stability that we have lacked for many decades. LaValley: I resonate with that because in my case, it was a choice. I chose to love the woman I’m currently with. Dr. Epstein: That very strong commitment you made, which was the commitment to open your heart, is a choice people can make. We’ve got to increase that awareness and give people the tools that they need so they can do what you have done, and what millions of people do, because most marriages around the world are still arranged. We have to use our heads more than we have been using, not just our heart and certainly not just our reproductive organs. We have to be a little more conscious of who it is we’re getting together with, and we have to be a little more realistic about what’s going to happen in the future. We have to be open to the idea that we can take control over what happened, that we can not only be in love but that we can build love, make love stronger over time. Dr. Epstein’s website can be found at: drrobertepstein.com Return For Tomorrow's Post: Why Doesn't God End Evil? Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today and a Ph.D. in psychology of Harvard University, exchanges ideas on the topic of arranged marriages with Jack LaValley, founder of true4ever, an information-based business that helps men and women learn how to create romantic partnerships that grow in love and intimacy over a lifetime. Dr. Epstein is the authorof Teen 2.0: Saving Our Children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence; The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen; and The Big Book of Creativity Games: Quick, Fun Activities for Jumpstarting Innovation.