All over the world, people of different races, beliefs, and cultures embrace different religions. Depending on the country, some religion may be dominant than the others. Dominance of one over the others does not mean unequal rights to exercise each religion. Respect for each other prevails in most situations. This is the principle that the great Pope John Paul II wants delivered to the world. Men/women have equal rights to embrace his/her choice of religion without prejudice to the others. After all, all religions are centered to belief in God. A non-religious person does not mean he/she does not believe in God.
We cannot discount though that there are a few of us who doubt that the Almighty Creator exist. Perhaps this might help change their perception from a doubter to a believer.
I think at one time or another, it had occurred to all of us to try to find answers to questions such as:
How did life originate?
Where did the earth and the universe and everything in them come from or
Who made them?
In short, who started all of these?
Personally, I think we will not find the answer if we stick to our sense of reasoning on natural laws even if we live nine lives. That leaves us only one option - that the Almighty Creator started all these.
The wonderful thing about these creations, living or otherwise, including us, is that they are all unique. Even identical twins are not alike. No one thing is an exact replica of the other. DNA will prove this.
For the purpose of this subject, we will use God as the center of our faith. But what if you're not a Christian? The same principle goes.
It doesn't matter what religion you're in. The important thing is that you have deep spiritual faith.
Studies have shown that having this kind of faith actually prolongs your life. The inner peace that your faith brings can contribute significantly to good mental & emotional health.
If you have deep spiritual faith, you have the power to conquer all obstacles that come along the way.
In the context of goal realization, prayer plays one of the most important, if not the most important part. Taking away prayer from the pursuit of our goal is like taking the spine away from a human body. Everything collapses. The importance of prayer cannot be overstated.
A goal originated from an idea while an idea originated from our mind. What originates from our mind originates from God. I believe that is a fair concept. Since God is the original source of our idea to a goal, it is natural that we ask God to guide us all the way in our pursuit, to aid us in times of need, to thank Him for every success no matter how big or small, and to offer back to Him whatever we have accomplished. And the medium we can use to have access to God is through prayer.
When two or more persons want to discuss something, they talk and listen through their lips and ears with the brains as the central processing units. Looks like we’re going high tech. It’s slightly different when we communicate with God through prayers, telling Him our personal intentions. We do the talking, God does the listening. We tell Him our problems or intentions. He listens and finds solutions or answers to them. He acts and tells us His responses through our thoughts, our minds. The rest is up to us.
Sometimes, two persons argue due to differences in opinions. Again with God, it is slightly different. He won’t complain like we usually do nor argue with us even if we pour out our aches and pains to Him and start to blame Him for all these. He will just be silently listening and wait till we come to our senses. One way or the other, He knows we will. Once our senses are back on the right track, He will start to work through our thoughts, just like before and let us know what we need to know.
For as long as our intentions are attuned to things that will bring good to us and to our neighbors, expect full support from Him.