Change Your Inner World First

In this short article I will talk about how you should seek to pray for your inner world and seek to change your inner world before you attempt to pray for others outside your inner world.

We all live in our own worlds. No person’s world is the same as another person’s, but I believe that its very important for those on the spiritual path towards God to seek to change the things in their inner world which is causing them harm before attempting to change other people’s worlds who are not in your world.

A basic example of this is that you should seek to pray for those close to you who are causing you harm before you seek to pray for those outside your inner world who are causing others harm. In a sense this is very much the analogy of when you are on a plane and before takeoff the flight attendant says in an event of an emergency for you to put your gasmask on before you put on the gasmask of those near you. The reason for this is that you should ensure that you are in a good place and are actually fit enough to help others, before you seek to help others.

This is very much why its important to pray for your inner world who are causing you harm in your inner world, before seeking to help those who are outside your inner world.

However, its also important to pray for yourself for your own benefit before seeking to pray for those in your inner world causing you harm, because again if you have a lot of issues and wounds from the past which are weighing you down mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, then you are not able to pray for others with the intention of helping them.

It’s as Jesus once said in his sermon on the mount; “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

What he was saying here is that you shouldn’t judge or condemn others because in doing so you in a sense set a metric that others will judge you by the same measure that you use to judge that them. But yet, you yourself are not perfect and so you shouldn’t judge others or pray for others until you yourself are able to “take the log out of your own eye”. In a sense we all have a log in our own eyes, some more than others. But its important to take up things like prayer and meditation and have it be established as part of daily routine because then will you be able to take the log out of your own eyes so to speak and also come into contact with God on a daily basis though meditation and prayer.

Further Reading:

https://www.bruderhof.com/en/topics/the-sermon-on-the-mount
https://www.christianbiblereference.org/jteach.pdf