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WORRYING
OR PRAYING?
by Terri White
In the 1980s, my husband and I began to question our belief system,
starting a journey of great upheaval in our lives, the likes of which we
never could have foreseen. While I am eternally grateful for every
accompanying struggle, the price was (is) high – death – , but I
wouldn’t trade one moment just to settle for the status quo, the bland
life of living in ‘the box’. I must note that this process requires
questions, and sadly, most people don’t even know that there is
another answer much less a question to ask.
So when the
question began forming in my spirit a few years ago, "Just what is
prayer?" I wasn’t surprised. Thus began another chapter in our
lives.
Prayer. . . we
throw the word around so casually, but do we really know what prayer is?
Some say it is a conversation with God. Some say it is being in His
presence. These are not wrong, but they miss the point.
First of all, we already have the presence of God in our lives. He lives
within us. If we are inviting Him to ‘come down’ and be with us, we
are saying that we do not have the presence of God living within us.
Which, of course, is not true. "He who is
joined to the Lord is one spirit. . .Do you not know that your body is
the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you. . .?" (I Cor.
6:17,19) This was my struggle. As much as I really did believe that the
Holy Spirit lived within me, I still lived with a sense of separation
from God. My prayer times were devoted to ‘being in the presence of
God’, and when I ‘sensed’ His presence, I would simply bask in
Him. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But my whole purpose for ‘prayer’
was based on a lie! I was not separated from Him. He was already living
within me, and I did not need to have a ‘prayer time’ to have His
presence in my life.
When the Lord
revealed this to me, my ‘prayer life’ completely changed. (Now,
that’s repentance!) Sometimes I simply sit and enjoy knowing that He
lives within me and that He loves me. Most often, though, I go through
my daily life with that quiet knowing that there is no separation, that
I am joined to Him and we are one; my thoughts are His thoughts and I am
relaxed in knowing that He is in me living His life through/as me. What
a prayer life! Did you get that? My life is a
prayer.
"My prayer
times are just worrying sessions before the Lord," mentioned my
friend Liz. These were the very words the Lord used with me concerning
my so-called intercession, prayer, supplication – whatever you want to
call it! Go ahead, worry to the Lord, but don’t call it intercession.
God knows our fears, doubts, worries, so let’s not be phony with Him.
Be real; tell Him how you feel. Then afterwards you can discover what
real prayer is.
As Norman Grubb
so ably states in the article below, intercession is letting the Holy Spirit
speak through you the fulfillment (answer) of what has already been
accomplished in the Spirit. We can trust Him to speak through us; after
all, He IS God and will make sure that we understand what He is sharing
with us in the way that we – as individuals -- can ‘hear’ Him. You
can trust Him.
The results,
then, are not up to us; we simply cooperate with the Holy Spirit by
faith. And how can we stand in faith in the midst of seemingly
impossible circumstances? Because God IS God, and He ".
. . works all things according to the counsel of His will"
(Eph. 1:11). It is God who is in control, not the devil (The Lie). Remember that
the adversary had to get God’s permission to trouble Job? Why it was
even God who initiated the conversation about Job to satan! So it is
with you. God IS in control and He just uses the devil (The Lie) as a tool to
bring about His purposes in every person’s life.
Prayer. . .
call it what you will, but it is an expression of the Holy Spirit in
your life by whatever means He chooses. It may be words from the Holy
Spirit coming from your lips, but it may also be an ‘action’ of some
sort in someone else’s life, initiated
by the Spirit of God.
Prayer
is a way of life.
THE UPSIDE-DOWNNESS OF PRAYER
by
Norman Grubb
". . . prayer is an indication that God is
stirring within us concerning some special need. This is why the
solution to [so-called] dryness in one’s prayer life is not to
"try" to pray more, but to give up praying. In place of the
prayer of self-effort, relax back into the recognition of the Indwelling
Person who lives within you. See Him, flow along with Him in
thankfulness, praise, and love, for these also are the movings of His
Spirit in us – in literal fact, God praising God, God loving God.
As we do this, we shall soon find that He is sharing His
outlook and concern with us, looking through our eyes; and we shall be
feeling His concern for various needs. . . This is the Source of
prayer – the Spirit making intercession because we don’t know what
or how to pray for as we ought. This is "praying in the Holy
Spirit."
But this response leads to something else of great
importance. For if God shares a burden or need with us which is on His
heart, does He not already intend to fulfill it? More than that, has He
not already fulfilled it in His sight, where past and future are
one? The best evidence that He has already fulfilled our need is
the statement that before there ever was sin and need, there was already
the provision of the Savior (I Peter 1:29). That is God’s upside-downness
to our material sight – the supply provided
before the need!
Paul says that Adam was "the figure of Him that
was to come" (Rom. 5:14). How can a fallen Adam be a type, pointing
to a redeeming Adam? Because God is forever the positive that swallows
up the negative, just as mortality is swallowed up in Life. Wherever
there is a negative on earth – a have not, a need, a weakness, an
unsolved problem, a sickness – His unchangeable character of perfect
love necessitates His provision of the supply, strength,
solution, health. Love is always a debtor (Rom. 1:14). It must
move in and pay its debts of self-giving service. Because God is love,
the full supply is never in doubt. "Before
they call, I will answer," was God’s word to Isaiah. His
word is just the same today.
Why, then, do we have these problems and needs at
all? Because human redemption is mediated through human agency – first
through God’s Son, and now through His sons. So
God puts us in tight spots to channel His creative faith through us.
Our calling upon God in prayer is merely the evidence that He has
stirred us into action. The answer is already there with Him – before
we call. Now as our calling moves on to the act of faith, God has His
human agent in gear through whom He can channel the answer. It is never our
need or problem or weakness, anymore than it is our supply or
solution. Both are His. We are merely the human agents through whom the
supply can reach the need.
One more point – what about unanswered prayer? The
whole point is this: whose prayer is it?
The supplication of the Spirit through us, or our own? Let us boldly say
that it is His supplication, for the revelation of union through
grace is what He thinks, what He wills, and what He sees through us in
our normal daily lives. Well, then, when we pray, why not say,
"Lord, I am boldly interpreting this need as an evidence that you
have the supply already on the way. I believe it. I receive it. Thank
you." If the supply doesn’t come as we expect, whose business is
it? Obviously His. Leave Him to mind His own
business. If God wishes to appear a failure to the natural
eye, let Him do so! He did at Calvary. Don’t take back as your concern
what you previously committed to Him. Don’t accept from the Accuser
blame for apparent failure or apparent unbelief.
A Lot of us get tangled up and condemned at
this point. Don’t take back a great
heavy burden as if the final answer depended on how much of it you
carried. Leave your burdens with God. Give the praise that
really counts with Him – not that which comes from the visible answer,
but that which is based on naked faith. "Blessed
are they who have not seen and yet have believed." "These all
died in faith, not having received the promise." But
they received enough by the faith which has the witness in itself to
endure as seeing Him Who is invisible. . . We, too, can have this
experience – today.
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