The proper prayer is a prayer in which we enjoy the Lord, drinking and inhaling Him into us. This is the first thing we should do when we come to pray. If anything frustrates us from praying in this way, we must realize that there is something wrong between us and the Lord and deal with it by confessing. We should say, “Lord, there must be something wrong with me. Reveal to me what is wrong.” If we are open to the Lord, the Holy Spirit will give us the sense that we are wrong in certain things, and we should follow that sense to confess our wrongdoings and apply the Lord’s blood. If after this we still have the sense that something is frustrating us, yet we do not know what it is, we should ask the Lord to cover us and cleanse us concerning whatever it is with His precious blood. We can take the standing of the cleansing of His blood, claiming it by faith. Then right away we should forget about the frustrating sense, look to the Lord, and absorb something of Him. We need to learn to enjoy the Lord in this way.
We need to spend a certain amount of time to absorb the Lord. We cannot do it in a fast way. We should look to the Lord and speak something about the Lord Himself. This is to breathe Him in. We should not first pray for many things according to our memory. When we come to the Lord, we need to forget about those things and not be burdened for anything other than the Lord Himself. We simply must come to contact Him, breathe Him in, and enjoy Him. This is the first matter in prayer.
The second main item of prayer is to express something of the Lord. This means that the Lord must burden us with some desire of His heart. His heart’s desire becomes a burden to us. After we have inhaled the Lord and absorbed something of Him into us, what we have absorbed becomes a burden within us, and we express this burden in prayer. This is the genuine and proper way to pray.
Sometimes this expression in prayer may be concerning our condition. The Lord may burden us that we are fleshly or sloppy. If He does this, we should have nothing different to say. Whatever else we say will not have the anointing. We may have the anointing only to say, “Lord, deliver me from my present situation. I am so fleshly, and I am so sloppy. Grant me full deliverance.” Sometimes we have to cry out and even weep with tears in our prayer. The more we pray in this way, the more we will touch and be touched by the anointing.
After we hear a message exhorting us not to be fleshly and sloppy, we may go to the Lord in our own effort and pray about our fleshiness and sloppiness. However, this does not work, and it brings out no change within us. We should not try to correct ourselves in this way. Rather, we must first go to the Lord to deal with every frustrating and negative thing, and then we must absorb the Lord, enjoy Him, and take Him in. Then something of the Lord Himself within us will burden us to pray.
Sometimes the Lord’s burden will be something for the church, for a certain brother, or for a certain work. That is the right time to pray for the church, to pray for that brother, or to pray for that work. This is not a prayer initiated by ourselves. It is a prayer initiated by the Lord within. This is more than just a petition to the Lord; it is an expression of the Lord. We express the Lord from within because we have been filled with the Lord. Our prayer is something of the Lord, even the Lord Himself, for us to express. This is the proper way to pray, not only to enjoy the Lord but also to express the Lord through intercession. To pray in this way is to pray in the Holy Spirit. We have received something of the Lord, and we are filled with Him within. Now because we have inhaled and absorbed the Lord, whatever we pray will be something from the Holy Spirit.
Many Christians practice to pray according to a prayer list or notebook of names. When they go to pray, they first check the proper entry in their prayer notebook. These, of course, are very good and devoted Christians, and sometimes the Lord works sovereignly through this kind of prayer. The Lord is gracious. Like the air, He comes into any place where there is even a small crack. However, this does not mean that this way of prayer is the right way. It is not the best way. The best way to pray can be compared to opening the windows. The brothers who take care of the meeting hall come before the meeting to open the windows and the doors. This is the right way to let the air in. If there is a hole in the glass or a crack in a board, the air can force itself in, but that is a poor way to let the air in. Similarly, the best way to pray is to “open our windows” to heaven, that is, to open ourselves to the Lord and contact Him. We all must learn day by day to open ourselves to the Lord, to “open our windows” to Him, just like Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem through his open windows three times a day (Dan. 6:10).
We need to open ourselves to the Lord and spend time with Him. We must not think that we do not have enough time. We should make no excuses about our time. The sisters are busy with cooking, washing, and many things, but they cannot say that they have no time to breathe. Even while they are cooking, they must open themselves to the Lord. In the past year and a half, we have composed two hundred thirty new hymns. Many times while I was composing, I said, “Lord, I open to You. O Lord, come in.” This illustrates that we cannot say that we are too busy to pray. While we are working, we need to open ourselves to the Lord. To pray in a closed room may be necessary sometimes, but this is not the normal, healthy way. Once when I had an illness for two and a half years, I spent much time to breathe in a concerted way. However, that was an abnormal situation. Today when I am healthy, I breathe all the time, whatever I do, wherever I go, and with whomever I contact.
We have to learn to contact the Lord in this way. We must open ourselves to the Lord to absorb something of Him into us. If we sense a frustration, we should immediately ask the Lord what is wrong and confess it. If we are not clear about what specifically is wrong, we should tell the Lord that we are under His blood, and we apply its cleansing. Then we have to contact the Lord by faith to praise Him, look to Him, appreciate Him, adore Him, behold His beauty, and stay in His presence for a certain time to praise Him and speak something concerning Him.
The more we contact the Lord in this way, the more we are filled with Him. After we enjoy the Lord, there will spontaneously be a deep sense within us, and we will have a burden to pray. We will forget our own affairs, problems, burdens, and troubles, and gradually we will have the burden of intercession. We will have the burden in prayer to express something of the Lord, and we can inquire of the Lord whether or not that is His burden, just as Abraham became burdened with the Lord’s desire concerning Lot and prayed while conversing and consulting with the Lord. After inhaling the Lord and being filled with Him, we will have the burden to pray, sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for our family, the church, the saints, the gospel, sinners, and even for the churches in faraway places. We will be one with the Lord to enjoy Him and express Him. This is the proper meaning of praying in the Holy Spirit. It is only in this way that we can pray in the Holy Spirit and pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17).
There is no need to be formal or to have a good composition in our prayers. Instead, we should speak freely with the Lord. The more we practice to pray in this way, the more we will pray in simple words, even in single words. Many times we may simply sigh in our prayer. These sighs are like the “selah” in the Psalms or like the rests in musical notations. This makes our prayer more meaningful. After praying for a while, we can pause for refreshment and a rest, a selah. We should not rush or utter something too quickly. Our resting gives the Lord a chance to utter something. If we have a small silence in our speaking, the Lord will give us further utterance. Sometimes we need to rest and even grope for utterance. This will give the Lord a chance to impress us with some new utterance. It is easy to practice our personal times of prayer in this way.