To spread "the light of guidance"

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• to have “loving and tender hearts”.
• to “spread … the light of guidance that cometh from the Company on high” 
• Some of the attributes of God of which we’ve become aware through His Manifestations:

• “the Strong”,
• “the Powerful”,
• “the Mighty”,
• “the All-Subduing”,
• “the Ever-Giving”,
• “the Generous”,
• “the Gentle”,
• “the Tender”,
• “the Most Bountiful”.

Recognition of the Manifestation of God

Insights from this prayer of Baha'u'llah

One needs God’s assistance to recognize His latest Manifestation

• God’s “signs … have encompassed the entire creation”;
• The light of God’s “countenance[through His Manifestation].. hath illuminated all that are in heaven and on earth”;
• God’s “mercy … hath surpassed all created things”;
• God’s “grace … hath suffused the whole universe”;
• I need God’s help to “rend asunder the veils that shut me out from” Him;
• When such “veils” are removed I would “hasten unto the Fountain-Head of Thy mighty inspiration, and to the Day-Spring of Thy Revelation and bountiful favors” – thereby recognize God’s latest Manifestation;
• This recognition of God’s latest Manifestation would allow me to “be immersed beneath the ocean of Thy[God’s] nearness and pleasure”.

The Báb’s feelings towards Baha’u’llah

Insights from this prayer by the Báb

• The Báb asks God to cause the “Tree of the Bayan” “to be made into a magnificent Scroll” so that it could be “offered to the presence of Him Whom Thou wilt make manifest”
• The Báb asks God
• by God’s “bounty”,
• by the “outpourings” of His “mercy and bestowals”
• and by the “evidences” of His “heavenly favours and grace”, to  watch over Him Whom God shall make manifest that no trace of despondency may ever touch Him.”

How we should view our dependency and interactions with Baha’u’llah

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• “we come with no provision but our sins,”, “with no good deeds to tell of, only hopes.”
• “Unless” Baha’u’llah’s “concealing veil” would cover us and His “protection shield and cradle us, what power” do we “helpless souls” have to rise and serve” Him, “what substance” do we the “wretched ones” have “to make a brave display?”
• We need Him to “help us”, to “favour us”;
• “ withered as we are,” we need Baha’u’llah to “revive us with showers from” His “clouds of grace”;
• “lowly as we are,” we need Baha’u’llah to “illumine us with bright rays from the Day-Star” of His “oneness.”
• We need Baha’u’llah to “Cast” “these thirsty fish into the ocean of Thy mercy,”
• We need Baha’u’llah to “guide … this lost caravan to the shelter” of His “singleness;”
• We need Baha’u’llah to “lead... the ones who have wandered far astray” to the “wellspring of guidance”;
• We need Baha’u’llah to “grant to those who have missed the path a haven within the precincts” of His “might”;
• We humbly ask Baha’u’llah to:
• “Lift Thou to these parched lips the bounteous and soft-flowing waters of heaven,”
• “raise up these dead to everlasting life.”
• “Grant Thou to the blind eyes that will see.”
• “Make Thou the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak.”
• “Set Thou the dispirited ablaze,”
• “make Thou the heedless mindful,”
• “warn Thou the proud,”
• “awaken those who sleep.”

Some of the metaphors representing Baha’u’llah

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• “Cloud of Mercy,”
• “Flowering Bed of grace”
• “Sea of all bestowals”
• “Sun of Bounty”

How our attitude should be towards God’s latest Manifestation, Baha’u’llah

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• He is our “holy Lord”
• He is our “Lord of loving-kindness”
• We “stray about” His “dwelling”,
• We long to “behold” His “beauty,”
• We love “all” His “ways.”
• “We are hapless, lowly, and of small account.”
• “We are paupers: show us mercy, give us bounty;
• We ask Him not to “look … upon our failings”;
• We ask Him to “hide … our endless sins.”;
• “Whatever we are, still are we Thine”;
• “what we speak and hear is praise of Thee”;
• “it is Thy face we seek, Thy path we follow.”

God's help through His angels

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

God can “support” and “help” us with His “angels of holiness” -- they who are His “invisible hosts”, His “heavenly battalions” who “bring down to defeat the massed armies of this nether world.”

We need God’s assistance to do the following tasks

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• to “arise to serve” God and “dedicate” ourselves “to the Kingdom” of His “divinity”;
• to “set” our “faces toward the realm” of God’s Self-Subsistence”;
• to “spread far and wide” God’s “signs”;
• to “be illumined” by God’s “streaming lights”;
• to “unfold” God’s “hidden mysteries”;
• to “guide” God’s “servants unto gentle waters and to the fountain” of God’s “mercy that welleth and leapeth in the midmost heart of the Heaven” of God’s “oneness.”
• to hoist the sail of detachment upon the Ark of Salvation, and move over the seas” of God’s “knowledge”;
• to “spread wide the pinions of unity and by their aid soar upward to the Kingdom” of God’s “singleness to become servants whom the Supreme Concourse will applaud, whose praises the dwellers” in God’s “all-glorious realm will utter”;
• to “hear the heralds of the invisible world as they raise their cry of the Most Great Glad-Tidings”;
• to “invoke and pray unto” Him, in our “longing to meet” God, intoning wondrous orisons at the dawn of light”;
• to shed our “tears at morningtide and even”;
• to yearn to “pass into the shadow” of God’s “mercy that endeth never.”

In our spiritual growth and development we need God’s assistance to:

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• “Flood” our “minds” with His “holy light;”
• “cleanse” our “hearts” with “the grace” of His “assistance;”
• “gladden” our “bosoms with the fragrance of the joys that waft” from His “Company above;”
• “make bright” our “eyes by beholding the signs and tokens” of His “might;”
• “cause” us “to be the ensigns of purity, the banners of sanctity waving high above all creatures on the summits of the earth;”
• “make” our “words to move hearts which are even as solid rock.”

We need to acknowledge our weak constitution as human beings and the fact that we are in desperate need of God’s assistance

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• We “are weak souls standing” at the “door” of God;
• We are “paupers” in God’s “courtyard”;
• We are “desperate” for God’s “grace”;
• We are “in dire need” of God’s “succour”;
• We are “turning” our “faces toward the kingdom” of God’s “oneness, yearning for the bounties” of His “bestowals.”

Qualities and blessings that we need to ask God to bestow upon our fellow believers

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• to “help” His “chosen ones to be faithful”;
• to “assist” His “loved ones to serve” at His “exalted Threshold”;
• to “cause them to gain the victory through the battalions” of His “might that overpowereth all things”;
• to “reinforce them with a great fighting host from out of the Concourse on high.”

I need God’s assistance to orient and strive towards the following areas of spiritual growth and transformation

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• to “sever myself from all else but” God;
• to “lay hold of the hem” of God’s “garment of grandeur”;
• to “consign to oblivion all that is not” God;
• to “be companioned by the sweet breathings that waft during these .. days” of God;
• to “attain unto faithfulness” at God’s “Threshold of Holiness”;
• to “arise to serve” God’s “Cause”;
• to “be humble before” God’s “loved ones”;
• to “be nothingness itself” “in the presence” of God’s “favoured ones”.

Some of the things we should include on our prayer list of requests to God

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• “Give me to drink from the generous cup of Thy grace and forgiveness”;
• “stir me with the sweet scents of Thy love”;
• “gladden my bosom with the light of Thy knowledge”;
• “purify my soul with the mysteries of Thy oneness”;
• “raise me to life with the gentle breeze that cometh from the gardens of Thy mercy”.

Acknowledging one's state of being

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

As human beings we should acknowledge our state of “helpless”, “poverty”, “misery” and “abasement”, in relation to God and ask for His “mercy”.

Certain attributes of God through which we can beseech His help

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• “the dawning of the light” of His “Beauty that hath illumined all the earth,”
• “ the glance” of His “divine compassion’s eye that considereth all things,”
• “the surging sea” of His “bestowals in which all things are immersed,”
• His “streaming clouds of bounty raining down gifts upon the essences of all created things,”
• “the splendours” of His “mercy that existed before ever the world was”.

The incredibly exalted station of God

Insights from this prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha

• No “words” can a human being attempt to find to “glorify” God;
• No way can the “bird” of a human being’s “mind” “soar upward” to God’s “Kingdom of Holiness”;
• God, in His “very essence” is “sanctified” above any “tributes” offered by human beings;
• God, in His “very being” is “beyond the reach of those praises which are offered” Him “by the people” that He has created.
• God, in “the sanctity” of His “own being” has “ever been exalted above the understanding of the learned among the Company on high”;
• God, will “forever” “remain enwrapped within the holiness” of His “own reality, unreached by the knowledge of those dwellers” in His “exalted Kingdom who glorify” His “Name”.
• Knowing how “inaccessible” and “sanctified” God is “above every description and praise”, how then can a human being ever “glorify” or “describe” Him?

Those who sincerely believe in God

Insights from this prayer by Baha'u'llah

(a) Attributes of those who sincerely believe in God

•   Such believers confess God’s “sovereignty” and “dominion”
• Their “discerning eye” perceives the “greatness” of God’s “majesty and the compelling power” of His “might”.
• They “enjoy near access” to God to such a degree that the “winds of tests” are “powerless to “hold” them back “from setting their faces towards the horizon” of His “glory”;
• They are so “wholly devoted” to God’s “will” that “the tempests of trials” will “fail to draw away and hinder” them from “approaching” His “court”.
• It seems as if “the lamp” of God’s “love is burning” in the “hearts” of such believers and that “the light” of His “tenderness is lit within their breasts”.
• “Adversities” appear “incapable of estranging them” from God’s “Cause”, and “the vicissitudes of fortune can never cause them to stray” from His “pleasure”.

(b) God’s blessings on those who sincerely believe in Him

In return, God will “keep” such believers “safe from the mischief” of His “adversaries”, and will “nourish their souls” with what He has “ordained” for His “loved ones” -- those “on whom shall come no fear and who shall not be put to grief”.

Some of the attributes of God and His exalted station

Insights from this prayer by the Báb

• God’s “grace encompasseth all”
• “From everlasting” God has been “the Source of indomitable strength and shall remain so unto everlasting”
• To God belongs “All the kingdoms of heaven and earth and whatever is between them”.
• To God belongs “All the treasures of earth and heaven and everything between them”
• God holds “in His grasp the keys of heaven and earth and of everything between them”
• In truth, God “keepeth watch over all things”
• God is:

• “the Powerful, the Almighty”
• “the Lord of might and power”
• “the Supreme Protector”
• “a witness over all things”
• “the Creator of the heavens and the earth and whatever lieth between them”
• “the Lord of Reckoning for all that dwell in the heavens and on earth and whatever lieth between them”
• “swift to reckon”
• “Immeasurably exalted”

• In the “kingdoms of Revelation and Creation and whatever lieth between them” all “glory and majesty” belong to God
• God creates “whatsoever He willeth by His Word of command ‘Be’, and it is.”
• “the source of dominion” is in the hand of God
• The “power of authority” always belongs to God.
• Through the “potency” of His command, God “maketh victorious whomsoever He pleaseth”.
• God sets “the measure assigned to all who are in the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them”.
• God bestows “gifts” through “the power of His command” and at “His Own pleasure”.
• “Through the power of His hosts of heaven and earth and whatever lieth between them”, God protects “whomsoever among His servants He willeth”