- To pray is to absorb God and to express God.
- We can absorb God by beholding His face and lingering in His presence, drawing near to contact God according to our true condition.
- We can express God by speaking what He has spoken within us.
TO ABSORB GOD
First, prayer is to absorb God; prayer causes man to obtain God. God is reality; hence, He is contactable and obtainable. The God whom we worship is not doctrine, theory, philosophy, or ideology, nor is He an empty character or a vain idol. The God whom we worship is Spirit; He is a real spiritual entity. He is as real as air, water, and sound. Just as air, water, and sound are in the universe, so also God, who is Spirit, is in the universe. We can worship Him, and we can also contact, absorb, and obtain Him.
Ironing is an example. Clothes that are placed under an electric iron absorb heat from the iron and, as a result, get hot. This illustration of absorbing heat through contact with an electric iron explains the meaning of prayer. To pray is to contact God and to absorb Him in that contact. Thus, the importance of prayer does not depend on how much we say to God or on how much we cry out to Him but on how much we contact Him. The more we contact God, the more we will absorb Him, and the more we absorb Him, the more we will enjoy God and salvation.
Apart from God, we have nothing. He does not give us some of His light, salvation, power, or grace; rather, what He gives is just Himself (Psa. 27:1). He is light, salvation, power, and grace. Hence, light, salvation, power, and grace are inseparable from Him. For example, electricity is the electric light in a lamp, the electric heat in an iron, and the electric power in a fan. Electricity is light to meet one need, heat to meet another need, and power to meet yet another need. Similarly, light is God, salvation is God, power is God, and grace is God. Every spiritual need that we have is God Himself. God has not given us anything besides Himself. Hence, if we lose God, we lose everything; that is, we have nothing.
The saints often say, “I am too weak!” We should not be surprised that we are weak, for we can never be strong. In order to make us strong, God will not give us strength, but He will give us Himself. It is inaccurate to think that by pursuing the Lord, we can grow until we are strong. Our strength depends on God; we can be strong only by contacting Him. An iron that is plugged into an electric socket needs at least two to three minutes to become warm and much longer to become hot. If it is unplugged for one minute, the iron will no longer be hot. Similarly, if a person does not pray, he does not contact God and therefore cannot be strong.
Many believers have the natural concept that before they can pray and draw near to God, they must wait until their condition improves or until their inner feeling is strong. This concept is not according to the meaning of prayer. To pray is to come to God just as we are. The closer we are to our true condition, the better. We do not need to wait for anything, change anything, or prepare anything. Even if we are weak, confused, sad, and speechless, we can still come to God.
God is everything to us. The expectation to be strong and have words for prayer without contacting God is vain. God does not want us to have such expectations. He is not concerned about whether we are bad, weak, or wrong. Our condition does not bother Him. He is concerned only about our seeing and contacting Him.
We usually groom ourselves before we meet others, and we pretend while we are with them. We do not need to pretend when we come to God. A brother who just lost his temper should bring that temper to God. Even if his spirit is low and he cannot rise up to pray, he should still come to God. We do not need to pretend, and God does not want us to pretend. The more that we are in our true condition when we pray, the better. Our condition is our condition. To change ourselves is human work. We do not need to change in order to contact God. Our need is God and to let Him change us.
If we would spend some time to pray every day in order to absorb God, the salvation of His countenance will become the salvation of our countenance (Psa. 42:5, 11). Perhaps a sister is very sorrowful and can only sigh in grief and sorrow during the twenty minutes that she spends in God’s presence. However, after twenty minutes her countenance will change, and she will become joyful. Our countenance manifests the salvation that comes forth from God’s countenance. Because we spend time face to face with God, the salvation of His countenance becomes the salvation of our countenance.
The first meaning of prayer is to absorb God. When we pray, we should behold His glorious face and linger in His presence to worship, praise, give thanks to Him, and muse upon Him. We should think of His works and His person and not look at our condition or our environment. By looking to God, waiting on Him, and musing upon Him, we can absorb Him into us.
TO EXPRESS GOD
The first meaning of prayer is to absorb God, and the second meaning is to express God. These meanings are related. To express God means to let Him speak, that is, to let God be expressed. Prayer is not our speaking or expressing ourselves. Prayer is our letting God speak and express Himself.
We should speak when we pray; however, the question is, What do we say? In our prayer we should say what God is saying within us. God speaks within us, and to pray is to repeat what He has spoken back to Him. This is the principle of Psalm 27:8: “When You say, Seek My face, / To You my heart says, Your face, O Jehovah, will I seek.” Such prayer is according to God’s speaking within us. Therefore, the words we utter in prayer are an expression of the speaking within us. Prayer is not our asking for something through speaking; it is our expressing what God has spoken within us. Hence, our prayer becomes God’s expression. This is real prayer.
For example, we hear that the church needs to pray for a certain special meeting or for the revival of the church. Just as we begin to pray, we sense a word from the Lord telling us something concerning our inner condition and our situation. We should stop praying and forget about the revival of the church or the special meeting and follow the inner sense; we should speak the words that the Lord has spoken. If we sense the Lord’s rebuke, saying, “You are full of the flesh,” we should say, “Lord, I am full of the flesh.” If we sense that the Lord is saying, “You are full of the self,” we should immediately say, “Lord, I am full of the self.”
In Psalm 27:4 David said that he desired to behold the beauty of Jehovah and “inquire in His temple.” David did not say “cry out” or “beseech” but “inquire.” To inquire is to ask God. Abraham’s prayer in Genesis 18 is a good example of inquiring. When God told Abraham that He would judge the sinful city of Sodom, Abraham said, “Will You indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed destroy…it?” (vv. 23-24). We would have said, “God, You must save Sodom. There are fifty righteous men in that city; hence, You must save them.” Abraham did not pray in this way; rather, he inquired about what God would do if there were fifty righteous men in the city, and what He would do if forty-five were righteous, and God told Abraham what He would do. When Abraham inquired about ten righteous men, God said, “I will not destroy it, because of the ten” (vv. 28-32). By this, Abraham understood God’s intention.
Although it was Abraham who continued to inquire in that prayer, it was mainly God speaking, not Abraham. Hence, at the end of the chapter the Bible says, “Jehovah went away as soon as He had finished speaking with Abraham” (v. 33). The best and most valuable prayer is not one in which we speak but one in which God speaks. The best and most valuable prayer is not one in which we cry out or beseech but one in which we inquire and let God speak. To cry out is to tell God the things of man, but to beseech is to beg for the things of God. The best prayer is to inquire. To inquire is to let God speak so that the words spoken are God’s speaking within man, God’s expressions. This is the best prayer.
LEARNING TO ABSORB GOD AND EXPRESS
If we want to learn lessons on prayer, we must first learn to absorb God. We should not regard God as being so high while we are so low. This is not according to God’s revelation. A prayer of revelation is one in which we do not consider our failures or weaknesses. Rather, in spite of how distressed or burdened we may be, we set our eyes on God and turn our heart to Him. Instead of caring about our condition, we enter into God’s presence to contact God by looking to Him, beholding Him, praising Him, giving thanks to Him, worshipping Him, and absorbing Him. This is a sweet lesson. If we would learn this lesson, we will enjoy God’s riches and taste His sweetness. If we would spend a little time to enter into God’s presence and absorb Him every day, we will receive light and power; we will be peaceful, bright, strong, and empowered.
When we learn the first lesson [of absorbing God], we will learn the second lesson [of expressing God] spontaneously. It is regrettable that some saints have neither learned to contact God nor to let God speak and express His desire when they pray. There is no need for the elders to pray in tears when the church encounters problems, saying, “Lord, look at this problem. Please remember that we are weak and foolish; we do not have much spiritual weight, nor do we know how to administrate the church. Lord, have mercy on us and solve this problem for us.” Such desperate prayers cannot be maintained. This is the condition of most prayers: they neither contact nor express God. Some sisters cry in prayer before the Lord whenever their husband has problems, their children are sick, or a family member is in an accident. They utter many words, but it is merely their speaking; they do not give the Lord a chance to speak. Even if the Lord were to say a few words, they would misunderstand His words. Most people pray in this way. Many pray, but few touch the Lord, contact Him, wait before Him, let Him speak, or let Him express Himself. Such prayers in which God does not express Himself are abnormal. In a normal prayer God speaks to us. Prayer should not be to take care of the problems that are on our heart but to contact God.
Our problem is that we often go to God in prayer, but we do not let Him speak to us. We must understand that the best prayer is not one in which we speak to God but one in which God speaks to us. The more we touch God in our prayer, the more He will speak to us. What matters is not how much we speak to God, but how much God speaks to us. What matters is how much we let God appear to us, speak to us, touch us, and point out our inner condition. We should drop all our burdens, forget our requests, and pay attention only to what God is touching in us. Then we should pray only according to that point. Whatever God asks for is what we say. Then our prayer will be His speaking, His expression. The most genuine and valuable prayer is one in which God expresses His prayer through man.
To pray by letting God speak and express Himself is to pray according to the Lord’s word in John 15:7. When we abide in the Lord, have fellowship with Him, and let Him speak within us, what we ask will be according to His words. Such prayer is not out of our self, nor is it initiated by us; rather, it is out of the Lord, and He is its source. We are not uttering our own words but the words that the Lord has spoken within us. Such prayer is not the expression of our will but the Lord’s will, and it is not our asking apart from the Lord. Such prayer is our praying to the Lord by abiding in Him and being mingled with Him. Such prayer is the issue of our mingling with the Lord. This is the best prayer!
Fellowship Questions
- What does it mean to absorb God in our prayer? How can we practice absorbing God through prayer?
- What does it mean to express God in our prayer? How can we practice expressing God through prayer?
- In the matter of prayer, why does absorbing God come before expressing God?
Excerpts taken from The Meaning and Purpose of Prayer, chs. 1-2