The Power of Praise
Praise is closely related to prayer; it is one of the avenues through which spirituality expresses itself.
Through an inherent law of mind, we increase whatever we praise.
The whole creation responds to praise, and is glad. Animal trainers pet and reward their charges with delicacies for acts of obedience; children glow with joy and gladness when they are praised. Even vegetation grows best for those who praise it. We can praise our own abilities, and our very brain cells will expand and increase in capacity and intelligence when we speak words of encouragement and appreciation to them.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). There is an invisible thought-stuff on which the mind acts, making things through the operation of a law not yet fully understood by man. Every thought moves upon this invisible substance in increasing or diminishing degree. When we praise the richness and opulence of our God, this thought-stuff is tremendously increased in our mental atmosphere; it reflects into everything that our minds and our hands touch.
When common things are impregnated with our consciousness of divine substance, they are transformed according to our ideals.
Through persistent application of the Judah faculty, a failing business proposition can be praised into a successful one. Even inanimate things seem to receive the word of praise, responding in orderly obedience, when, before, they have seemed unmanageable. A woman used the law on her sewing machine, which she had been affirming to be in bad order. It gave her no trouble afterward ... A woman living in a country town had a rag carpet on her parlor floor; she had for years hoped that this carpet might be replaced by a better one. She heard of the law and began praising the old carpet. Greatly to her surprise, inside of two weeks she was given a new carpet from an unexpected source. These are a few simple illustrations of the possibilities latent in praise.
Whether the changes were in the inanimate things, or in the individuals dealing with them, does not matter so long as the desired end was attained.
Turn the power of praise upon whatever you wish to increase
Give thanks that it is now fulfilling your ideal. The faithful law, faithfully observed, will reward you. You can praise yourself from weakness to strength, from ignorance to intelligence, from poverty to affluence, from sickness to health. The little lad with a few loaves and fishes furnished the seed that, through the prayer and thanksgiving of Jesus, increased sufficiently to feed five thousand people.
If we do not receive answers to our prayers it is because we have not fully complied with the law. "You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly" (Jas. 4:3). This does not mean that we ask of the Lord things that we do not need; it means that we miss the mark in the method of asking, that our relation to Divine Mind is not in harmony with the law; the failure is not in God, but in us. We should therefore never be discouraged, but, like Elijah praying for rain, we should persevere until our prayers are answered.
All causes that bring about permanent results originate in Spirit.
Spirituality, faith, and love are God-given faculties, and when we are raised in consciousness to their plane they act naturally under a spiritual law that we may not comprehend. There is a law of prayer, which man will eventually recognize and apply as he now recognizes and applies the laws of mathematics and of music.
Jesus said, "I will do whatever you ask in my name" (Jn.14:13). We ask in his name when we pray in the Jesus consciousness of universal Spirit. He attained unity with Divine Mind, and realized that his thoughts and words were not from Himself but from God. When we pray in his name we enter into his unity with the Father, and attain the same consciousness that he attained.
Excerpt from Christian Healing.