If you don't know how to pray, it doesn't matter

“If we don’t know what to pray, it doesn't matter”

Oftentimes during corporate prayer, when we are taken into the depths of worship, beautiful tongues in unknown languages will flow out from us in songs and in verbal utterances.

This is praying in the spirit.

It is yielding ourselves to the Holy Spirit to allow Him to pray or sing through us in an unknown language. 

To pray/sing in tongues is to pray or sing in the spirit.

1 Cor 14:2 GNV

“Those who speak in strange tongues do not speak to others but to God because no one understands them. They are speaking secret truths by the power of the Spirit”

It is a “prayer language” capable of leading us into extended hours of prayer.

Romans 8:26-28 The Message

“Meanwhile the moment we get tired waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside us all along. If we don’t know what to pray, it doesn't matter. He (the Holy Spirit) does our praying in and for us, making prayers out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition and keeps us present before God. That’s why every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good”

Praying in the spirit makes prayer a joy, not a task. 

Praying in the spirit is easy because it flows from our relationship with the Holy Spirit. 

Praying in the spirit plunges us into the depths of God’s love and keeps us under the shelter of His wings.

4 reasons to keep on praying in the spirit:

1.   Keeps us in the love of God – Jude 20-21 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

2.  Keeps us from false teachers/deception – Jude 19-20 “These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit….”

3.  Keeps us on the victor’s side – Ephesians 6:18 “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints”

4.   Keeps us edified in the Lord – 1 Cor 14:4A “He who speaks in tongues edifies himself”

How do we stay focus as “the mind is unfruitful”?

Picture the face of the person being prayed for or picture the global map of the nation or the name of the city  or simply “speak” the name of JESUS, JESUS, JESUS over and over again in your mind. 

Sooner or later, the Lord will download the face of the person or picture of the nation being prayed for.

However to be balanced in our prayer life, we need to know that although praying in tongues is needful, praying in understanding is equally important. 

Both are interdependent, not independent. 

Both are complementary, not competing. 

Both are integrated, not separated. 

Both enrich and enhance our prayer life.

It would do us well to pray both in the Spirit as well as in understanding.

1 Cor 14:14-15 “I will pray with the spirit and I will also pray with understanding. I will sing with the spirit, I will also sing in understanding”

 Testimony by Ruth

“I pray in the Spirit often in my office before work starts. I will visualize the work I have to do for the day and begin praying in the Spirit for wisdom.

There was one piece of work that had been a disaster from day one. Every time I produce the 30-page monthly report, the boss would scold me non-stop for producing an incoherent piece of work with numbers/calculations that did not jive.

I was so stressed out having to prepare this monthly report that I would break out in cold sweat just thinking of the task.  My heart would start pounding (panic attack) even before I could take up the pen to start drafting.  

I knew that she felt ashamed to present such a report that was full of so many mathematical and grammatical mistakes to the board.

100% of the assignment would have to be thrown out each time until the 3^rd or 4^th drafts. I was so fed up with being scolded that I determined to spend many hours just praying in the Spirit visualizing the report in my mind asking the Lord for help!

I asked the Lord to show me to the detail how to format and write the report. Yes, I (who am not good in Maths) even had to ask the Lord to help me churn out numbers that make sense!

Praise the Lord that the ideas came to me over a one-month period.

It was so clear (like a high resolution computer image) even to the pie-charts, the calculations and the diagrams! I quickly sought the help of my IT-savvy officer to put what I saw during my prayer 

time on paper.

It was so well done that for the first time (after 2 years of incessant scolding with regard to this assignment) my boss actually signed off the paper at first reading and even wrote a remark on the paper

“Good”.

Thank you Lord for downloading wisdom to me in my work-place while praying in the Spirit.

God is excellent in counsel and wonderful in His working!”