Prayer time 29 July 2026
I know just what to do
The intelligence for your next step is already given, and it is given as one step.
Download a PDF of the prayer script
Orientation
Tīhei mauri ora. Kia ora koutou, and welcome. My name is Jacinda, and I am simply your host tonight.
All prayers and all pray-ers are welcome. Bring all your prayers: the people on your heart, the conditions and situations you are holding, your thanksgiving, your joy, your ease. All of it. Bring it in.
A reminder that the purpose of our prayer is to remember who we are and to whom we are connected.
Psalm 119:105, King James Version: ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.’
A lamp at our feet lights the ground we are about to stand on, and many people have walked a long way by that much light.
Tonight we pray with the second of the seven aspects of God that Emmet Fox set out in two lectures at Unity School of Christianity. The second is Intelligence.
Relaxation
Let us take a moment to relax and settle where we are.
Feel the chair or the floor underneath you. Put both feet down if they are not down already. Notice the temperature of the air on your hands.
What time did you get here? Were you rushing? Some of us have come straight from the dishes, or from a conversation that we left by saying, ‘Hold that thought. I'll be back.’ There are many things left unfinished as we've come to prayer. Let them be behind you now.
A full body sweep, top to toe. Take your time with it.
Breathe as you normally breathe. There is nothing to achieve in the breathing. Breathing is simply a sign that we are alive, we are here, and we are connected to life.
A prayer for coming to rest. Unity of New Zealand, 2026, with a line from Julian of Norwich:
I have come in to pray today from a full day that has asked a great deal of me.
I set down what I was managing.
This beautiful evening will hold itself together without my attention for half an hour.
‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ (Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, c.1395)
I am here. We are here together. We are here to pray,
and so we pray.
[pause]
Eyelids closed, if you would like them closed. We are relaxed and we are ready.
Now we prepare ourselves for silence, for the deep listening within.
Concentration
As we enter into the silence in this wonderful time of concentration, we now bring to mind all the things that we are praying about. In particular, the things that appear as troubles, worries and concerns, the things we can't quite see our way through. Bring them to mind. We don't need to name them individually. Just allow them to appear in your mind's eye and hold them there.
Now we take our Golden Key moment. We turn from the trouble, the concern, the worry, and we replace it with the thought of God. Tonight that thought is Intelligence. So we hold our prayers, and we listen. I will read to you from Emmet Fox, ‘The Seven Main Aspects of God,’ delivered as two lectures at Unity School of Christianity:
The fourth main aspect of God is Intelligence. When you clearly realize that this is an intelligent universe it will make a major difference in your life. In an intelligent universe there cannot be disharmony because all ideas must work together for the common good. Neither can there be any lack. An engine which has been intelligently designed does not have any unnecessary parts and neither are any essential parts lacking.
An engine has exactly the parts it needs. That is Order, and Order is what Intelligence looks like once it is running.
Fox then gives us a warning, and it is a warning for our time as much as for his:
It is especially important to realize that God is Intelligence because it sometimes happens that when people outgrow the childish idea that God is just a magnified man, they go to the opposite extreme and think of God as a blind force, like gravity or electricity. This means that they have lost all sense of the Love and Fatherhood of God, and such an idea is very little better than a subtle form of atheism.
Intelligence without Love is machinery. We are not praying to or as machinery, but as Children of the Most High God.
Psalm 82:6, New Revised Standard Version: ‘I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you.”’
H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth, Lesson Two, ‘Statement of Being,’ 1894:
God is wisdom and intelligence. All the wisdom and intelligence that we see in the universe is God, is wisdom projected through a visible form. To educate (from educare, to lead forth) never means to force into from the outside, but always means to draw out from within something already existing there. God as infinite wisdom lies within every human being, only waiting to be led forth into manifestation.
And in the paragraph directly following:
Heretofore we have sought knowledge and help from outside sources, not knowing that the source of all knowledge, the very Spirit of truth, is lying latent within each one of us, waiting to be called on to teach us the truth about all things, most marvelous of teachers, and everywhere present, without money or price.
Without money or price. Nothing to qualify for.
John 16:13, New International Version: ‘But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.’
Now we clear the way.
I deny that I was skipped, and that the instructions went to everyone but me.
The Spirit of truth is within me, and it is teaching me now.
I deny that I must see the whole way before I am permitted to move.
I am given light for the step in front of me, and that light is sufficient.
I deny that my slowness is evidence that I am off the track.
I am moving in divine order, at the pace divine order is using.
[pause]
Meditation
And here we come to this time of longing and of silence. In our time of silence, we are to listen within. A little preamble by me and then our silence. My trust is that as I read to you, you will be encouraged. Let these words highlight anything you are thinking or believing to be true about a situation. Let the judgement of your situation, and of the people you pray for, go before our meditation.
Charles Fillmore, The Twelve Powers of Man, Chapter X, "Spiritual Law and Order," 1930:
We are not to be liberated by suppression of sense, or by violent overcoming, but by a steady step-by-step demonstration over every error.
Here is consolation for those who chafe under the whips and cords of the regenerative law. Because of their many defeats and the snail's pace at which they progress, they think that they are off the track. However, they are not. They will attain their good if they persevere and patiently wait upon the Lord.
Take that with you into the silence. Take the one thing you cannot see your way through, and stop working on it. Be still with it, and let the most marvellous of teachers do what it does.
And so we come into silence, and we patiently wait here upon the Lord.
Come gently back. Feel the air on your skin. Fingers and toes.
Realisation
What do you now know to be true? This is the time to affirm it in the quiet. Take a moment and say ‘yes’ to what you know to be true from your time of silence.
H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth, Lesson Five, ‘Affirmations,’ 1894:
If there comes a moment when you are in doubt as to what to do, stand still and affirm, 'God in me is infinite wisdom; I know just what to do.' Do not get flustered or anxious, but depend fully and trustingly on your principle, and you will be surprised at the sudden inspiration that will come to you as the mode of procedure.
The teacher within is what Cady calls the indwelling Christ: the Presence at the centre of every person, in every tradition, teaching from there.
Stand still. Affirm. Wait for the mode of procedure. Let us do it now.
God in me is infinite wisdom. I know just what to do.
Let us affirm together:
I am guided from within, and that guidance is already underway in me.
I need only the next step, and the next step is already given.
My life has exactly the parts it needs.
The wisdom I need is drawn out of what is already in me.
My apparent slow progress is not evidence that I am off the track. I am patient, and I wait on the Lord.
I stand still, and I know just what to do.
‘Don’t just do something, stand there.’
[pause]
A prayer of turning, for another. Unity of New Zealand, 2026:
Now bring one other person to mind. Someone who is struggling to see their next step. You do not need their permission to pray for them, and you certainly do not need to tell them that you are. This is your silent prayer ministry. It is your business.
So a little prayer exercise together.
Together, we hold the truth about them until we know it. That is the whole mechanism of prayer at work.
Say it with me, and put their name where the name goes.
God in [name] is infinite wisdom. [Name] knows just what to do.
The Spirit of truth is within them, teaching them now.
Their life has exactly the parts it needs.
They are given light for the step in front of them, and that light is all-sufficient.
[pause]
Isaiah 58:10–11, New International Version: ‘and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always.’
Dear ones, your light rises in the darkness at the moment you spend it on somebody else.
Appreciation
Thank you for the wisdom already in this gathering tonight.
Thank you for every person who has come to prayer without ready answers and has prayed in faith and trust.
Proverbs 4:18, New International Version: ‘The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.’
The light increases as you walk. So we give thanks that as we go from this prayer closet back out into our world, the light goes with us and increases ever brighter till the full light of day, in every situation we find our prayers are reaching.
From the prayer our Lord taught us, one line:
Hōmai ki a mātou āianei he taro mā mātou mō tēnei rā.
Give us this day our daily bread.
This is this day’s portion, asked for today.
Unity reads bread as substance, and the supply of this substance arrives in the measure the day requires. So, tomorrow's bread arrives tomorrow.
One thing to take with us — this edification and encouragement for us. Emmet Fox, in that same Intelligence lecture, says this:
Children and young people respond very readily indeed to a prayer for expression of Intelligence through them. If you are interested in a young person at college, pray several times a week that Intelligence will manifest through him and you will be surprised to find how his progress in his studies will increase. Remember also the wonderful fact that when you work for a person the result will be with him for the rest of this life.
Most of us here pray quietly, at home, on our own. Pick one young person this week and pray Intelligence through them from your prayer cave, your chair, your closet. The result stays with them for the rest of their life. What an unspeakable joy to take from this place tonight.
We close with the blessing.
James Dillet Freeman, ‘Prayer of Protection,’ Unity School of Christianity, 1947:
The light of God surrounds us.
The love of God enfolds us.
The power of God protects us.
The presence of God watches over us.
Wherever we are, God is.
Prepared by Jacinda Faloon-Cavander for Unity of NZ