God is working in mysteries today just as He always has. In our day, just as in Peter’s, God is unfolding a divine plan that is far beyond our natural comprehension, and we are His partners in the fulfillment of that plan. We are called to cooperate with Him in prayer and help bring those mysteries from heaven to earth.
But we cannot do it with our natural minds. Even the written Word of God, by itself, cannot enable us to pray out those divine mysteries. They can only be opened by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. So we must look to Him for revelation day by day. If we are going to accurately pray out the mysteries of this age, we must live and pray in total dependence on Him.
How can we cultivate that kind of dependency? How can we protect ourselves from the pride of assuming we know what to pray as we ought?
We can do it by adopting the attitude of a little child and admitting that we truly don’t know very much. We can do it by remembering that in light of the vastness of God and the grandness of His eternal plan, we’re all just beginners.
In my heart, I’m more aware of that now than I’ve ever been before. I understand that even though I’ve been a pray-er for many years, I am—and always will be—in the category of a beginner.
Like a child in school, I must look perpetually to the Holy Spirit to teach me each day what I need to know because it is His instruction I need, not what I hear in the news or learn from others. It is what He is saying and how He is moving in my own heart that counts. To pray as I ought, I must be careful not to lose the simplicity of trusting the Holy Spirit and praying from my heart.
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 2:7 – 10
On the chilly March night in 1972 when Lynne Hammond took her first step into a life of Spirit-led prayer, she had no idea what was about to happen. All she knew was the hunger in her heart for God wouldn’t let her sleep. In the few short months she’d been born again, her desire to fellowship with Him had grown so strong she could hardly contain it. “Help me, God!” she cried. “I want to know you. I want to be able to talk to you. Please, teach me to pray!”
Suddenly, a heavenly presence flooded the room. Lynne sensed waves of spiritual fire sweeping over her and a beautiful language began to flow like a river from within her. Although she’d never heard of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, she knew instantly, without a doubt—this was God!
What began that night soon blossomed into a life of prayer that ultimately became a ministry of prayer when, in 1980, Lynne and her husband, Mac, founded Living Word Christian Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Under Lynne’s leadership, the prayer ministry at Living Word has become an internationally recognized model for developing effective pray-ers in the local church.
A teacher and an author, Lynne publishes a newsletter called Prayer Notes, has written numerous books, and currently serves as the national prayer director for Daughters for Zion. Her passion for inspiring and leading others into the life of Spirit-led prayer continues to take her around the world to minister to believers whose heart cry, like hers, is “Lord, teach me to pray!”