Praying and Manifesting
Definitions
Prayer (noun): An address (such as a petition or formal request) to God or a god in word or thought; an earnest request or wish; the act or practice of praying to God or a god
Pray (verb): To make a request in a humble manner; to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving
Manifest (noun): Manifestation, indication; manifesto
Manifesto (noun): A written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer
Manifest (verb): To make evident or certain by showing or displaying
Are manifesting and praying the same thing?
This is a wonderful question that a friend of mine recently posited. There are so many directions my mind goes when I think of this question. For getting started though, I want to talk about the definitions coupled with what I have both observed and experienced from and of these practices.
Let’s start with prayer
Simply put, to pray is to make a request of God/god or come to Them with something. People pray about wishes for the future, for healing, etc. expressing anything from gratitude to grief. For myself, I see it as a conversation with the divine.
I grew up going to church. For the first nine years of my life, I attended a Catholic church, then from ages nine to eighteen, a Lutheran church. The details aren’t so necessary (maybe another time), but what I want to tell you is how these distinct periods shaped my experience with prayer.*
When I was Catholic, prayer was intimidating. It was a habitual production that involved a lot of memorization, and because I never spent enough time at home learning the rosary prayers, I lived in a torment of being found out.** When I was Lutheran, prayer still had rules and recitations but there was less pressure to perform or say the right thing all the time. It was when I was Lutheran, I learned I could talk to God like a friend.
I liked praying. It felt like a warm hug from my parents. I never felt alone when I conversed with God, and sometimes I’d just go sit by a lake and listen for her messages. I believed whatever needed to come to me, would. This wasn’t how I saw most people pray, but I despised an obligation to address the divine using a script. Moreover, I didn’t get why there was such emphasis on attending church when I could have the best conversations with God wherever I wanted.
Between my non-traditional, personal means of prayer and being an ex-Catholic attending evangelical church camp, I saw a lot of ways to pray. Through it all, there was one common thread that became clearer with time: prayer gave the power of change to something or someone else.
When I expressed gratitude, I never credited myself or my loved ones for the work it took to make, purchase, or bring whatever I was thankful for into my life. When I expressed sadness, I felt helpless, like I was made to wait for God’s next move no matter how long it took. Prayer led me to believe that I had to give up all control on my life, not just my feeble attempt to control things that were actually beyond it. Prayer suggested to me that I couldn’t trust myself, and that people who did were lost sinners who also needed to start looking outside of themselves in order to feel whole. This kind of prayer isn’t meditative or introspective. The kind I’m talking about here is the convicted revelationist who can’t leave anyone to their own vices because they can’t fathom the idea of being able to trust themselves.
This way of thinking led me into relationships where I let mistreatment continue to happen because I thought the Divine would intervene. My whole sense of purpose was based on the messages of another entity and time period altogether.*** Prayer, by its definition, is exactly what contributed to my sacrifice of self-knowing, because I hoped so much in something else and someone else to save me.
And now, on manifesting
Manifesting by its definition is to make something certain and declare the intentions of the person who is delivering the message. For me, manifesting is also a conversation with the divine, but instead of putting everything about my life into someone else’s hands, I get to collaborate with the Infinite More-ness.
Because I err on the side of casualness and don’t buy into hierarchal structures, manifesting is an appealing practice to me. I think it goes perfectly with my love of writing and creating art. It makes perfect sense for me to be a collaborator and maker of my life alongside the divine instead of being subject to it. I’ve been manifesting for longer than I realized, and I think a lot of people might feel this way, too.
When looking for summer jobs, I’ve always told my family that one would find its way to me. It’s not like I wasn’t active in looking for work, but often I would land a nannying gig because someone recommended me to another family. After college, I didn’t want to work in a lab, and I didn’t want to go to grad school anymore either.**** I just wanted to do something meaningful. Luckily, I came across a position I loved, with coworkers I adored even more. After publishing my book, I decided I wanted to be a writer (as I always have). A friend of mine knew someone who was looking to hire freelancers, and I started the following week. I shaped up my resume and what I thought might just be a temporary restaurant job turned into restaurant hostess and social media manager, something I’d been considering giving a try.
It’s been years now, that I’ve trusted the universe and I to find my next steps together, and it has yet to fail me. Manifesting keeps you actively involved with the shape of your life. There will always be things outside of your control, but unlike praying, manifesting gives me permission to describe and validate my own desires and needs. Manifesting allows me to put my inner knowing in the front of my consciousness, while praying made me feel like I had to keep that intuition buried to honor God.
So no, praying and manifesting aren’t the same thing, by definition or experience. I think how people participate in prayer and manifesting are variable, as are the experiences with these practices. At the end of the day, I believe what matters is that you know you are worthy of being treated well by the people in your life. You have authority over your wellbeing and inner peace. Most important, you are a vessel for kindness, and you know yourself.
*For clarity’s sake, and because some people are particular about their labels: I was baptized and received my first communion in the Catholic church, so for this chunk of time I will refer to myself as being Catholic. Once my family started attending a Lutheran church, I will refer to myself as Lutheran. This is the sect of Christianity I was confirmed in. I feel the need to break this down because these are distinct faiths that had distinguished impacts on me.
**I had the worst first confession ever. I remember being so anxious and sweaty, I couldn’t even speak. Eventually the priest realized I wasn’t going to say anything on my own, so instead he said everything, and I repeated it. Some part of me knew that this setup, the two of us separated by a wicker-slotted window, was not going to ever happen again.
***That entity is literally a fallen empire that sought to control mass groups of people so that the powerful could stay in power.
****Thanks for sucking the life out of me, Covid.
