Prayer Diary #2

June 9^th, 2003

10:20 pm – 1:25 am

Yesterday’s Sunday’s message was based on Philippians 3:1-11. There, the expression “We who worship by the Spirit of God” stood out, because I could not understand its meaning. It is we who worship God, but the expression suggested that by God’s Spirit, or by the help of the Holy Spirit, we worship God. It didn’t make sense to me. While this was lingering in my heart, today I went to God in prayer and God revealed its meaning to me.

In the beginning of my prayer time, I tried to have intimate fellowship with God, but even though I tried, spoke aloud, tried to pray fervently, I could not tap into that prayer mode. I struggled and struggled,  but I could not. My prayer was somewhat tasteless. As I struggled this way, I realized that even though the recent conflicts with others had been resolved through honest talk, and I had no more inner problem with them, my spirit was not yet recharged fully and I could not enjoy intimate fellowship with God in prayer. My mind was clear, but my spirit was not prepared for meeting with God. I was discouraged.

I spoke about this in my prayer, exposing all these problems, saying that I could not pretend to be spiritual, and nothing could be hidden in the spiritual realm. Even though we can deceive people, we cannot deceive even a demon.  My spirituality is exposed very clearly to everyone in the spiritual world. I told God in prayer that even though my mind was cleared up through conversation with others, my spirit was not prepared to meet God and worship Him.  I asked the Holy Spirit for some help.

As I came to God as I was, confessing my lack of spirituality, my inability to worship God properly and to enjoy fellowship with Him in prayer, the Holy Spirit guided me to the presence of God and blessed me to enjoy deep intimate fellowship with Him. There, I recognized the presence of the Holy Spirit, and I could see His personality. As I prayed, praising him and confessing my love and thanks for him, I could feel and see that He was overjoyed and happy with me, looking at me with such warm and loving eyes. I knew then that I was beloved, and I did not want to leave that prayer spot. I wanted time to stop forever. God’s love was so real, and as I saw how overjoyed the Holy Spirit was because of me, joy and peace flowed in my heart like streams of a river.

Now as I spoke to him about this or that, he gave me his response immediately so that I could enjoy conversation with him. I said, “I love you”–I saw that he accepted my love confession and was even happier than before. Then, I asked him, “What should I talk about next, Lord?” Immediately, a prayer topic popped up in my heart, and as I talked about it, He again responded to me like a friend, and our conversation went on and on. I thanked God the Father who chose me from the beginning and poured out such great blessings upon me. I remembered Jesus, my shepherd, who had visited me and said, “I know you.”  And I thanked the Holy Spirit for being my teacher and Counselor.

I had such a great time in prayer, and finally I realized what Paul meant when he said, “We who worship by the Spirit of God.” I could understand what it meant to worship God by the Spirit of God. Surely, we ourselves cannot worship God because we are human beings, while God is the Creator. But by the Holy Spirit, we can worship God with all our hearts and strength, and we are overjoyed as we worship God wholeheartedly. Worshiping God with all our hearts and strength is the best time for us, and I realized that our life, the life of Christians, should be the continuation of worshiping God like this all the time. We are the real children of God, who worship God by the Spirit of God. Even though we are not fully prepared and qualified to worship Him, for we are nothing but the dust of the ground, still we can worship Him with the help of the Spirit of God.