Q: Who should I pray to? I’ve been reading about the life of Jesus and I have a new understanding of Jesus’ role as sovereign of our local universe, but I generally pray directly to God. What is Jesus’ role in my personal life? Should I pray to Him directly? Someone on a discussion forum said something to the effect that “circuitry could get crossed if praying to the wrong form, ” which I don’t think I believe. I’m hoping it doesn’t really matter, because I’ve said a lot of prayers to God, and I feel like they’ve been answered.

A: Thanks so much for your note to us here at TruthBook.com.

Here’s a bit of Urantia Book wisdom that should ease your mind:

5:3.4 The moment the element of self-interest intrudes upon worship, that instant devotion translates from worship to prayer and more appropriately should be directed to the person of the Eternal Son or the Creator Son. But in practical religious experience there exists no reason why prayer should not be addressed to God the Father as a part of true worship.

I don’t believe that we have to worry in the least about whether we pray to God or to Jesus. Like you, I pray most often to God, or “Father, ” but oftentimes, I pray to Jesus or Mother Spirit. And, like you, I feel heard by God in any event, and my experience tells me that God knows me and my inner heart.

Sometimes, the prayer of supplication overlaps with the worship experience, but I feel certain that the deities can sort it out for us, even if we may not be altogether organized in our intention, or where it’s going in the moment. Most of us just pray without thinking a lot about it, and it seems to me the most important thing is that we pray, regardless…even the Bible enjoins us to “pray without ceasing, ” and I think that’s good advice, too. I doubt whether God will reject, or miss, our prayer if our heart is in the right place.

You might like to read the rest of this section called True Worship, in which we are given more information about our prayers. This information about the actual “mechanics” of prayer direction is not meant to make us worry, but to reassure us that our prayers are directed where they belong, even when we are not fully aware of it.

The way I see it, Jesus’ role in a human life is as savior, spiritual role model, friend, and father/brother. Jesus IS God to us, and when we seek him and speak to him in prayer, we are speaking to God anyway. Jesus and the Father are one, so, whether we direct our prayer to Jesus or to the Father, our prayer is heard—and its circuitry is automatically determined for us—from this local creation and beyond. When Jesus walked the earth, his prayers were always directed to his Father in heaven. We can do no harm in following his example.

I hope this helps to ease your mind about prayer. Thanks so much for writing to us and I hope you’ll feel free to write back any time!!!