God Helps Us Pray

Ruth and several others meet on Friday nights at their church for a two-hour prayer vigil. She told me, "We come to listen to what to ask and then pray that back to Him. Listening is a very important part of our praying."

God wants us to listen for His voice rather than get caught up in our own words. Don't we choose our words more carefully if we're listening closely to someone?

At times it is unwise to rush into God's presence and ask the first thing that comes into our minds. Instead, we should be silent and look to Him to send His Spirit to teach us how to pray.

"Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God" (Ecclesiastes 5:2). Adam Clarke comments on this verse, "Weigh thy words, feel deeply, think much, speak little...Send up the silent breathings of your soul."

In prayer, as in all of our spiritual life, God declares it is "not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit." (Zechariah 4:6). Without God's help, we do not even have the ability to stir ourselves to pray. "There is no one who calls on your name, Who stirs himself up to take hold of You" (Isa. 64:7 NKJV). 

Richard Trench wrote, "We must pray in the Spirit....Do not address yourselves to prayer as to a work to be accomplished in your own natural strength. It is a work of God, of God the Holy Ghost, a work of His in you and by you."

Dear Lord, help me to remember that to pray in the Spirit is to follow Your leading.

"The wise man's heart guides his mouth" (Proverbs 16:23).