There was a husband and wife who were having marital difficulties. One of the spouses would wake up in the morning, lean over to their spouse and start listing what they wanted the spouse to do that day. The list wouldn’t take long to recite. Maybe five minutes at most. Some days less. Some days they would forget, and just go about their day. But if they didn’t forget the list, after they finished the list, they would say, “Ok, Good talk,” and then start their day, never again talking with the spouse. But they were committed to that morning list. Most days. Thus when they inevitably went to marital counseling, they said in all seriousness to the counselor, “But I talk with my spouse every day. Well…most days.”
This marriage would not survive long, would it? Obviously not. But I’m not talking about marriage. I talking about prayer.
In this our final week in the Armor of God blog series, we look at Ephesians 6:18-20, and it’s all about prayer. After telling us to stand firm by putting on the full armor of God, and then after describing each piece of the armor, now Paul has one more important instruction for us in the spiritual battle we all face. He writes,
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.”
That first phrase, “pray in the Spirit,” is curious. How do we pray “in the Spirit”?
Paul has already said earlier in this letter in Ephesians 5:18 that we need to be filled with the Spirit. But he leaves room open for precisely how we are filled with the Spirit or how we pray in the Spirit. Is it something that you can make happen, like turning on a light switch on the wall? Paul doesn’t quite tell us. It’s almost as if he assumes that the readers of the letter already know what praying in the Spirit means, so he doesn’t have to explain it again. I’m thinking, “I wish you would explain it again, Paul.”
Clearly Paul wants the readers of the letter to have a close association with the Spirit. He does not want us pray without the Spirit. When we pray, the Spirit is to be involved, and we have a responsibility to welcome the Spirit into our time of prayer. We know that the Spirit lives with us. Paul wrote that previously in 1st Corinthians, when he says in 6:19-20, that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, so honor God with your body.
I think what he is getting at here is a posture of heart and mind, such that we not only intellectually know that the Spirit is with us, but we also invite and welcome the Spirit in conversation. It is one thing to say, “It is a theological fact that the Holy Spirit lives in us.” It is quite another thing to say, “Holy Spirit, I welcome you in this conversation. How are you doing, Spirit? What is on your mind? Speak to me, and I will listen. Convict me of the things I need correction for.”
Acknowledge the Spirit, the other reality that is going on beyond what is visible. As we’ve seen over the past few months, the Armor of God teaching has heavily emphasized dependence on God as we battle temptation and the pressures of the world, the flesh and the devil. Praying in the Spirit involves dependence on God, a posture of heart and mind that recognizes the strength is not in us.
In the Lord’s Prayer, for example, we pray “Let us not into temptation, but deliver from evil.” When we pray a prayer like that, or even when we recite that specific prayer, we acknowledge our awareness of the presence of God’s Spirit alive in with us and in us. We are crying out, “Help!”
Paul wants us to have that kind of receptive, welcoming approach to praying in the Spirit.
But perhaps you might not be accustomed to that kind of prayer. In the next post we’ll learn more about how to prayer in the Spirit.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 
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