Prayer: Another Perspective
by Phil Gehlhar
The need for a prayer book is brought about by the fact that our minds, our vocabulary, and the whole intellectual processes of man are limited. They are not always capable of expressing, or even knowing our basic real needs. Perhaps that is why the Psalmist prays, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord." There is more to prayer than words. The meditation of the heart is also prayer and sometimes it cannot be expressed in words or thoughts. Saint Augustine said, "How sweet are the sighs and tears of prayer." Suppose you saw heaven with all the angels and the glorious throne of God as John did. Normal language is simply not adequate to describe it or adequate to praise God. There are not enough words in any human vocabulary nor thoughts in any human mind which can fully offer the praise that God's glory deserves. Aware of that fact, Paul says, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for them that love him" (1 Cor. 2:9).
Rationalism would confine man's way of praise and prayer to one part of man – namely, the mind. Such an intellectual approach makes us frown on physical responses in worship. If we close our eyes and fold our hands, we can blot out or prevent emotional or physical participation in prayer. The Spirit, as well as the body and emotions, are stifled. One who has come to think of prayer in this way may find emotional or physical responses to God as offensive.
This is not the way the Bible teaches us to pray, however. The Psalms would have us include not only the mind but the body and the spirit in prayer and praise. As the Psalmist wished to praise and bless God, he said, "Let all that is within me bless his holy name" (Ps. 103:1). Clapping, dancing. lifting the hands for prayer or praise, or the use of instruments in worship are not only permitted, but commanded in Scripture. What kind of language does a trumpet speak? How can the rational mind explain the praise offered to God from the organ? Can its sounds be evaluated by human standards? What language is spoken by the sun, the moon, the stars, or by the sea monsters, fire, hail, snow, frost, stormy wind, mountains and hills? All of these are considered the agents of praise to the Lord (Ps. 148). The heavens are telling the glory of God, though they have no human language. "Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world" (Ps. 19:1-3). That kind of praise cannot be encompassed by the brain of man.
Often when the Holy Spirit is released in a Christian, the Spirit enables him to "Pray in the Spirit." This kind of prayer is defined by Paul when he says, "My spirit prays but my understanding (mind) is unfruitful" (1Cor. 14:14). Here is a level of communication with God that goes beyond the intellect. It is God's Spirit in contact with our spirit, releasing the prayers from God's own heart and praying directly into the will of God. These prayers can release the needs in our spirit even when our linguistic ability would not be adequate to do so. There is a real need for this kind of praying, as Paul says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Rom. 8:26).
God's way of getting past our own limited vocabulary, our limited understanding, our limited knowledge, even our prejudices, is that through the Holy Spirit he enables us to pray in another language that the mind doesn't understand. The Bible speaks of this kind of praying when it says, "One who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands him." "He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself and I want you all to speak in tongues" (1 Cor. 14:4-5) The form of praise used here is called "blessing with the Spirit" or "giving thanks" (v. 16f). Tongues is called a manifestation (gift) of the Holy Spirit. It is of God, and God does not want us to despise or reject any gift that he gives for our edification and blessing. We are to appreciate how God brought perfect praise even out of the mouths of "babes and sucklings" (Mt. 21:16).
But just as Jesus spoke the above words to those who objected to the children's praise, so he speaks today to those who reject his gift of tongues as a supernatural means of prayer because they want a form of prayer which is more dignified, more intellectual, more understandable. Many people, speaking from ignorance, lightly dismiss tongues as "gibberish." Such bias comes forth in books written to oppose and mock it. They have attempted to analyze the sounds made by "tongues speech" to demonstrate or imply that it was not a genuine gift of God because they (the analyzers) didn't know of other human languages like it. But such rational analysis of "praying in the Spirit" is totally irrelevant to one who has received the gift, based on submission to God's Word and with trust in God's power and love. If the human mind could grasp it or analyze it, that would only demonstrate that its source is in the mind rather than in the Spirit. In that case, it would have no value. A rational analysis of tongues amounts to applying a mental or intellectual test to something that is totally spiritual. It serves only to strengthen the prejudices of those who reject the gift because of ignorance, pride or fear.
It is to be expected that learned and intelligent men might reject that which does not originate in the intellect. God says, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise" (1 Cor. 1:9), and "My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts" (Is. 55:8). Again, the Bible explains why man cannot understand spiritual gifts when it says, "The unspiritual man (psychikos, i.e., rational, by human wisdom) does not re-ceive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiri-tually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14).
But for one who senses the limitations of our humanity and yet feels a desire, even a need to pray or to praise God in a way that goes beyond those limitations, this gift is edifying. He can understand it no more than he can translate the voice of the wind or the clapping of the waves as they praise God. It's certainly no stranger than some known languages that consist of grunts, or whistles, yet are a means of human communication even though strange to our ears. A story in the Omaha World Heard told of twin girls, 5 years old, who were still not talking. At least their family thought they weren't talking. But speech therapists discovered that they were talking to each other in a language all their own.
Now if little children can devise a language and use it to communicate to each other, why can't the Holy Spirit do the same to enable us to speak to God from our human spirit?
We need to learn a fuller definition of prayer. Instead of only bringing requests, or even conversing with God, prayer involves a whole person, body, soul, and spirit . . . surrendered and directed to God.
Rev. Phil Gehlhar
9190 Poppy Circle
Westminster, CA 92683