Isaiah 21:6
As a watchman in prayer, sometimes you will be led to make petitions and supplications on behalf of those you are watching over. At other times, the Holy Spirit will lead you to make declarations. He will show you things to come so that you can speak them forth.
We see an example of that kind of watching in Isaiah chapter 21. There the prophet Isaiah had a vision of what is about to happen to Belshazzar. He foresaw the fall of Babylon and declared what he had seen.
That’s the way it is when you are watching in prayer. Sometimes you pray things, and sometimes you say things. How do we know what to pray and what to say? We don’t! Only the Holy Spirit knows. So we must learn more and more to yield to Him. We must learn more and more to pray in the spirit.
What does it mean to be in the spirit?
I like the way my friend, Patsy Cameneti, describes it. She says, “When we’re in the spirit, we’re more conscious of God than anything else. We’re more conscious of Him than our natural surroundings. We’re more conscious of Him than the people around us. We’re more conscious of Him than the time. And that’s what we want to strive for when we begin to pray—to get into the spirit.”
Being in the spirit is being in the manifested presence of God and that’s the real place of prayer. From that place, we can work with God as sons of God. We can see and discern His will so we can pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
There are some things we can do that will help us get in the spirit. Praise, worship, and thanksgiving will often take us there. But even so, we must always trust the Holy Spirit to lead us and carry us up into the consciousness of God, because only He knows how we can get there on this particular day in this particular situation.
Only He knows the way.
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 21:1 – 9
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!”