Prayer: In His Presence

Prayer is to be in God's presence. Though we can petition the Lord of all our needs and cares in prayer, sometimes the Lord simply wants us to be in His presence. There is joy in the presence of a loved one. So much more, there is joy in being with the most beloved one, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is to be in an intimate fellowship with the Lord in His presence.

The central work of God is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen people to become one with Him. For this, we, the chosen people of God need to spend time with Him. Not to explain to him our feelings and thoughts, nor to petition Him of our burdens and concerns, nor to praise Him of His deeds and sovereignty, but to simply spend time with Him in His presence that He could intrinsically work Himself into us. This is one of the crucial points in our recent training.

The Lord indeed brought me into such an experience. I had made a plan on my journey back from Pune to Delhi few weeks ago. My plan was to use the entire day on my train journey to do my pending works. But I just could do a bit of it. I was led simply to pray and pray the whole day, in between reading the word; I enjoyed the presence of God so much. The Lord graced me to experience the reality of simply spending time with Him in prayer. In fact, just by being in the spirit, the purpose of prayer itself was accomplished already. Similar experiences followed suit. Sometimes, I had nothing to utter in prayer, but I simply enjoyed being with the Lord in His presence. At times, I wanted to initiate what to pray for, but the Lord simple led me to pray for "nothing" but enjoy His presence. This experience of prayer is very unique and goes against my natural concept. But this is how it should be. Now this experience has been repeated again and again these days. 

By this way of enjoying the presence of God simply, the Lord is gaining ground in me. This is yet another level of God working into humanity. We pray for nothing seemingly, but we pray everything in by enjoying the presence of God. Just like when we breathe in air, it seems we are gaining nothing solid into our system, neither food nor drink. But without this very air, food and drink cannot sustain life either. Pray for nothing outwardly, but praying oneself into God and praying God into oneself. This is an effective way of prayer. 

Prayer, praying in the presence of God!