PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT
As tempting
as it is to write at considerable length on prayer I’ve run out of time to do
so. By the time you receive this Insight my wife Nola and younger son John and
I will be either on a flight to
Before
drawing this series to a close, however, there are two other aspects of prayer
that I want to discuss briefly. The first is the activity of the Holy Spirit in prayer. We noted that the Spirit
plays a necessary role in learning about God by enlightening our minds to God’s
truth, helping us see how it applies to life, and by impressing it upon our
hearts. He is also active helping us to pray. Paul spoke of the Spirit
interceding for us “with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26). He
also spoke of “praying in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:18), as did Jude (Jude v.
20).
Some people
see this “praying in the Spirit” as the experience of praying in a special
prayer language given by the Spirit. I think it much better to understand it as
praying with the special help or under the influence of the Spirit. As he
indwells us, the Spirit penetrates and strengthens every part of our being. He
helps us see truth more clearly, feel emotions more profoundly, and determine
to act more resolutely. When it comes to prayer, he enables us to approach God
with confidence, express ourselves with clarity and sincerity, and wait upon
God with believing expectancy – all in a spirit of ardent love, trust and
humility. There are times when his assistance lifts us above the struggle that so
often marks prayer and gives us a sense of immediate, face-to-face contact with
God. When this happens it can seem a though “God is here”; we lose track of
time, of other people, and are caught up in the sense of meeting with God.
While these “encounters” might be relatively rare, they are often
life-changing. They are, however, but intensified expressions of what happens
whenever we pray in true dependence upon the Spirit’s help.
The great
Puritan theologian John Owen writes on this matter as clearly as anyone I’ve
read. He describes how the Spirit helps us pray firstly by disposing our hearts to pray by “working gracious inclinations in
us to this duty” (The Holy Spirit, His
Gifts and Power, p. 326). “We are naturally wholly averse from all
intercourse with God,” he writes, “and there is still a secret alienation
working in us from all duties of immediate communion with him: it is he [the
Holy Spirit] alone who prepares, disposes, and inclines us to pray with delight
and spiritual complacency” (Ibid.).
Owen goes
on to say how the Spirit helps us in the matter
of our praying. “He supplies the mind with a due
comprehension of the matter of prayer, or what ought to be prayed for; without
which no man can pray as he ought” (Ibid.,
p. 327). Beyond that, the Spirit is also at work helping us in the manner we pray. He “works also a due
sense and valuation of the things prayed for… and this is the fountain of that
inexpressible fervency and delight, of those enlarged labourings
of mind which they sometimes experience under his extraordinary influences” (Ibid., p. 330).
How
encouraging this is. God has not left us to our own devices when it comes to
prayer. We have a divine Helper at hand always ready to direct, dispose and
enliven us when we meet with God. How we ought appreciate his help, rely on it,
and do everything we can to avoid suppressing it.
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