My Prayer Guide is a Whom
If the One Who has our best interest at heart wants to guide us, shouldn’t we listen?
My prayer guide is the Holy Spirit…“the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name”…John 14:26. He really has been all along. I just didn’t know it as much as I do now. I didn’t listen as well as I am now. I’m still not great at it by any means. But, He, as a person, is my Guide. It isn’t so much just talking and listening. It is a spiritual interaction where I keep my mind open to Him. I pray for my family, and those closest to me every day. If He wants me to go to the list of leaders I oversee, then so be it. I used to only use a list. Lists of people are not bad. But He is the One who knows what is going on behind all the scenes of life. He knows what He, the Father, and the Son are up to in my life. He knows what God has planned to write in my ‘poema’ (Greek)…’ the workmanship’ planned by God that I should walk in. Eph. 2:10. He knows how to translate to the Father what is in my heart, what is hurting, and can’t get out. He knows the words to say to the Father. “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27.
The enemy will attempt to mimic God and pull you away from listening to Him. The enemy will place other thoughts in your mind. You must take them captive, and know which ones to follow. 1 Cor. 10:5
Ask the Spirit to guide. Don’t try to think it through on you own.
I may wake in an anxious mood and not know what is going on in my soul, deep in my heart. But He does. So I, we, must ask Him to search us. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” Psalm 139:23-24 (NAS). Let Him lead. Let Him be your guide.
Of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Spirit has been the One I think we have misunderstood the most. We have left Him to Himself most of our lives. We may have known He was operating in the background, but just didn’t listen. For me, in these last few years, I have come to realize just how much He has been working in the foreground. So I have invited Him to let me see Him at work. Not that He needed inviting. I asked that He help me recognize Him at work instead of just wondering what He was doing. As I read in the book of Acts, I see Him leading people personally. He is not computer software running behind the scenes. He is a person. He is our helper, the Spirit of truth, our comforter, our seal for the day of redemption. And, He is our guide.
From God’s Word:
John 14:26
Ephesians 2:10
Romans 8:26-27
Psalm 139:23-24
John 14:16-17
Ephesians 4:30
John 16:13
1 Corinthians 10:5
Thank you for your word Doug. I feel with me the Holy Spirit is the one I understand the least of the three and leave out the most. Amazing what the Holy Spirit can do with a collector of feathers (inside). Luv ya man.
I also love Psalms 139 1-5. We all know it.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Talking with someone who knows me that well, and groans on my behalf as you mentioned in Romans 8, is amazing, but I also like a few verses later in that same chapter where it says: “34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. So not only does he know me better than myself, but the Holy Spirit intervenes with the Father on my behalf, and so does Jesus who leans over from the Father’s right side on my behalf. With a team like that, I couldn’t mess up prayer if i wanted to. They will make sure of that. I also like the quote that explains the outcome of prayer: “He answers our prayers the way we would have asked it if we had known what he knows.” I can’t lose on this important topic.