Introduction
If you find yourself getting stuck in prayer or often wondering what to pray, this teaching is going to help you find that flow in prayer — that rhythm where prayer becomes like breathing, that natural for the believer.
What Blocks the Flow in Prayer
We have to acknowledge that when we go to pray, there are many different things that can block that flow. Things like distractions. Maybe your mind is cluttered with all of the cares of this world. Maybe something happened at work that wasn’t favorable, or you’re feeling the pressure from school, or there’s this strain in your marriage, or your children aren’t serving the Lord.
All of that clutter, all of that pressure, all of that tension can cause you to become resistant to the flow in prayer.
Also consider things like doubt. You doubt that God hears you. You doubt that God has accepted you. You doubt that your past is forgiven. You doubt that you have access to the throne room of God when you pray. So distraction, doubt — these can prevent that flow in prayer.
So how do you go from that to finding that flow where you’re communing with the Lord? What do you pray when you don’t know what to pray? What do you do when you can’t quite find that rhythm of the spirit, that flow, that river of the spirit?
How do you yield? How do you surrender to that move of the spirit so that you can approach prayer with confidence, knowing that you’re going to go to higher heights and deeper depths — that you’re going to find that spring in the desert, because that’s what it feels like sometimes in life, where everything else is dry, everything else is uncomfortable, and then you come to that place in prayer where it’s like finding a spring of life.
Key #1: Wait on the Lord
You do that. Number one, here’s the first key: You wait. Stop striving. Stop tensing up emotionally and mentally. Stop trying to work the formula or the protocol or the method, and just learn to surrender. You do this by waiting.
Psalm 8:18 says, “So will not go back from thee. Quicken us and we will call upon thy name.” Notice here that first, in the spirit, there’s this quickening.
And you’ll notice that as you go to pray, maybe the first five minutes there’s a struggle. Ten minutes go by, there’s a struggle. Fifteen minutes, there’s still a little bit of that tension.
But as you continue to wait, you’re going to notice there’s this moment of surrender that comes where you’re clearing your mind of that distraction, clearing your mind of the doubt, clearing your mind of the fear. And you’re just focusing on the Lord Jesus. You’re just having faith that he hears you. You’re grateful for his presence, and something will click — and then suddenly prayer is like breathing. It’s so natural.
You’re not trying to find a script. You’re not trying to force yourself to do it. You don’t feel that resistance from the flesh — because you will notice that when you pray, your flesh starts to squirm. Maybe your body even tenses up a little bit. You get really impatient. You’re looking for anything that’ll get you out of the moment. Not that you don’t want to pray, but that other part of you, the flesh — that’s what’s resisting.
But when you wait, there’s this quickening that comes. Quiet your soul. Stop tensing up. Stop striving. Wait on the Lord. And as you wait on the Lord, there’s that moment that arrives where now you are quickened.
You see, prayer is like a river, and in the river there are many streams. Sometimes the Lord wants you to worship. Sometimes the Lord wants you to intercede for your loved ones. Sometimes the Lord wants you to rebuke the enemy and participate in spiritual warfare. Sometimes you need to repent. Other times you just need to wait, and the Holy Spirit will help you find that rhythm as you wait on him.
You see, we expect to step into the prayer room and just have God do what we want him to do. But that’s not the way it works.
Who is waiting on who? You feel weak. You feel weary. You feel like you don’t know what to pray. You feel like you can’t quite find that flow in the spirit. Wait on the Lord. And as you wait on him, there’s that quickening of the spirit, and supernatural strength comes to you.
Time just ceases to even be a thing, to where now you’re so caught up in the presence of the Holy Spirit that there is just this beauty and this majesty and this glory about the moment that is undeniable.
But that’s not going to come through tension. That’s not going to come through works of the flesh. That’s not going to come through doubt or frustration. That will come as you wait. Just yield. Surrender. Stop striving. Stop trying to force something to happen.
Don’t Try to Dictate the Experience
When you go to pray, when you go to read the Word, if you put all sorts of pressure on yourself to have a very specific experience, then that expectation — that self-imposed standard — will become a distraction from what God is actually doing.
So when we come before the Lord, instead of saying, “Lord, I want you to do this and this and this, I want to encounter you in this way and that way,” you just need to wait again. Stop trying to create the moment and just wait on the Lord.
As you wait on the Lord, we need to learn to come to prayer, quiet the soul, focus on the Lord Jesus, and wait patiently for the Lord to quicken us.
Key #2: Read the Word
Another thing you can do when you come to that wall — I call it the wall because it feels like hitting a wall in prayer. You have this flow and then suddenly there’s this stoppage.
But notice that these are not in any specific order. These are principles that you can use as the spirit leads you.
So when you read the Word, you’re seeing the promises of God. And when you see the promises of God, you’re seeing what’s available for you to pray. You can pray what he promised.
As you comb through the scriptures, you’re seeing the word of God, sometimes like a mirror. You are listening to the teachings of Jesus, and suddenly you are convicted deep down inside. What Jesus says makes you stop and say, “Oh my God, Jesus told me this, but this is what I do.” Or the Bible tells you to have that attitude, but you have this attitude. Or here’s a biblical mindset, and when you compare it to your mindset, it just doesn’t seem to align.
In that sense, the Word of God becomes like a mirror. You begin to see all of the things that you need to correct about yourself, or that God needs to help you correct. So as you read the Word, one of the things you begin to do is see all the things that you can pray about yourself. Lord, give me joy where I’ve experienced sorrow. Lord, I’m so filled with fear — help me to trust in you.
As you comb through the scriptures, as you comb through the teachings of Jesus, as you look at the epistles of Paul, you’re receiving that truth from the Word that becomes like a mirror to your heart, to your soul, to your being. And now you can see your reflection and say, “Okay, Lord, this needs to be corrected.”
Then you begin to pray about what needs to be corrected. You begin to yield more specifically, more intentionally, in the areas where you know you lack surrender.
And then you begin to see the Word of God’s promises for your situation. You see what the Word of God says in terms of how to pray for your loved ones. You see what the Word of God says about how to approach him, in what to say to him. You read the Psalms and you see all the different ways that the psalmist wrote unto God, and you’re inspired by that. It gives you a model for prayer.
You can also pray the scriptures. As I said, you can pray for what God promised. And when you pray the scriptures, you’re praying the will of God.
So when you don’t know what to do in prayer, go to the Word. And very quickly, you will start to see: okay, this needs to be corrected in me. I have to fix this part of my character. I have to fix this part of my mindset. Lord, help me to fix my nature. Help me to adjust that mindset. Lord, I repent of this specific behavior.
Again, you begin to see how you pray for your situation, for your loved ones, for the ministry he entrusted to you, for the business that’s in your care, concerning your health. You see what you can pray, and it gives you very specific points of prayer. The Word of God in you now ignites the spirit of prayer. It becomes like a fire, and it stirs up that passion for prayer.
You’ll notice, by the way, when you pray the Word, there’s more depth to your prayers. There’s a richness when you pray. I can tell — not all the time, but often — when a believer is in their Word, because there’s a substance to their prayers. There’s a depth to their prayers. They’re not just repeating vain repetitions or some script — there is substance behind what they’re praying because of the richness of the Word.
Key #3: Worship
Number three, and it’s very powerful — in fact, if you have an hour to pray, I would say do number three for 45 minutes.
Worship is the adoration of the Lord. This is intensity of attention. This is focusing on the face of Jesus. And let me tell you, worship works together with the Word. This is because whenever I receive revelation through the Word, I see the face of Jesus Christ, and once I see the face of Jesus Christ, worship wells up from my heart.
True worship is inspired from deep within, and that pours forth sometimes in song, sometimes in praise, sometimes just in tears. It’s this awe-stricken mind, this looking unto the Lord with awe filling the heart. It is giving God glory as you see his glory. That’s true worship.
The veil’s been removed. You now have eyes of the spirit. You can see the image of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. As you look at that image of Jesus, that glancing at the Lord causes you to be transformed from glory to glory, becoming more and more like him.
This takes place, of course, all of the time in the spirit, but as we’re conscious of it in moments of prayer where we’re dedicating time to the Lord, this can be especially helpful. Because you might feel like you’re getting stuck — I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to pray, I don’t know what to think, I don’t know where to stand, I don’t even know how to fill the time.
Here’s what you do: you wait on the Lord, you get into the Word, and you begin to worship. And as you begin to worship him, there’s this sweetness that fills the room.
Once you’ve tasted this, you are ruined for anything else. Nothing else will satisfy once you’ve tasted of this. Once you’ve had a true encounter in the presence of the Lord, once you’ve had a true experience in his Holy Spirit’s sweet presence, that manifestation where you can sense him in the room with you — once you’ve had that, nothing else will do. Nothing else will ever fulfill. Nothing else will ever matter as much as the presence of the Lord.
You begin to worship him. That’s the word I’ve used throughout the years because it’s the only one that I see fitting. There’s just this sweetness about the room, this sweetness about the atmosphere. Even as I recall right now moments I’ve had with the Lord in worship and in prayer, I have nothing else to compare that with. And you’ll know it too.
You’ve got to learn to just worship him. I know maybe you’ve even tried that before. But sometimes when you don’t have the words to speak, you don’t have the so-called script to pray, you don’t even necessarily have the passion, and you’re just there, maybe even discouraged, frustrated, saying, “I don’t even know what I’m doing, I don’t even know how to pray” — good. Because you’re like me. I didn’t know how to pray without the help of the Holy Spirit either.
So you just pause for that moment. You wait on the Lord. Stop striving. Stop trying to force something to happen. Get into the Word. Let that fill your mind. And then just begin to worship him. When you don’t know what to pray, just worship.
As you begin to worship him, you recognize that the questions, the doubts, the requests — all of that can be addressed, can be acknowledged, and God doesn’t mind you bringing those to him. But you can lay all that aside for a moment.
As you look into the face of Jesus with the eyes of your spirit, through the eyes of faith, as you focus on him — his character, his nature, his power, his mercy, his love, his grace — he becomes like a brilliant light, and everything in the room begins to fade. Nothing else matters in those moments. You will sense as if you’re being taken to higher places, as if your bedroom itself, wherever you’re praying, is being lifted into a heavenly realm. And you just begin to worship him, to love him.
Simple songs of love to the Lord. Simple songs of worship that are God-centered. It’s okay to sing a spiritual song about your faith journey, and it’s okay to acknowledge the burdens that you carry in song — there’s nothing wrong with that. But we need to also sing songs that are God-centered, toward him.
In those moments when you begin to worship, everything else changes. The clutter in the mind goes away, and now you find that flow, and there’s not this rigidity to it anymore. It’s just the rhythm of the spirit, like breathing in the natural. That’s how prayer is in the supernatural for the Christian when they’re led by the spirit to worship.
A Prayer Over You
Precious Lord, I pray for your people now, and I ask you to cause them to find that flow in prayer. Let them find the river of the spirit as they yield, as they wait, as they focus on your truth, as they worship you. I rebuke all distraction in the name of Jesus.
Holy Spirit, even now manifest your presence and power around them, and let them sense you near to them. Let them sense your presence on their very being, I pray. Make yourself known to them.
Lord, help them to be people of prayer. Help them, when they pray, to have the faith and the surrender and the trust to find that flow of the spirit. Bless them with the richness of your presence. Bless them with the glory and the manifestation of your power. Let your presence be as a treasure to them, prioritized above all else. Take them to deeper depths and higher heights.
Lord, I pray even now that your healing virtue would flow. If you need a healing in your body, I want you to agree with me right now in prayer — there’s a river of healing flowing here. Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are causing miracles to happen. I rebuke that sickness and disease in the name of Jesus. Lord, set your people free from every bondage. Let them sense your peace on them even now. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray.
Give Freely and Prosper
Proverbs 11:23-25 says this:
“The godly can look forward to a reward, while the wicked can expect only judgment. Give freely and become more wealthy. Be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper. Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.”
Prosperity is a biblical word, and the scripture tells us plainly that the generous will prosper. When you practice generosity, especially towards ministry and especially toward the work of the kingdom, you are allowing for the flow not just of God’s provision, but of his prosperity.
I believe in giving, and I want to invite you to participate in what God is doing through this ministry through your giving. We ought to sow where we grow. It’s a biblical principle that I pray this generation captures — that when you receive the Word of God from a ministry, if that blesses you, if that helps you, you are to honor that word through the support of that ministry so it can continue its work.
So again, generosity unleashes that flow. The flesh’s default position is to grip tightly, and that’s really fear. But when we operate in faith, there’s this freedom, this release of resources.
