Carried Along

“…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.”—Ephesians 6:18

I like hot air balloons. I enjoy riding in the car with my family when one of my children points out the balloon majestically soaring overhead. They are filled with the hot air that allows them to soar. It’s amazing how high they can go, especially when you see them on the ground. They are laid out, a flat mess of color waiting to be filled. Then the hot air is put in. The balloon begins to fill and fill, but it doesn’t take off yet. There are ropes holding it to the ground that must be untied before it can fly. But when it is untied, and the balloon soars overhead, there is such unimaginable beauty to be seen. While on the ground, we can only see what’s around us, but when the balloon is filled and we are riding in the basket, we are carried along to see great things that we could not otherwise see or understand unless we had a higher view.

Praying in the Spirit is similar to riding in a hot air balloon. In our flesh we are tied to this world, but once we position ourselves to take in the hot air of Word of God, we are able to soar, to see the world from a new perspective and in our case, it’s God’s. We are enabled to see the world from His point of view and know how to pray for others accordingly. While we are on the earth we can only see one small perspective, but overhead we get a much better view.

A person without Christ is in bondage to sin, flat, unable to soar; their will subject to the ground. But a believer in Christ has been set free because Christ has given us His Spirit. The ropes are untied, and when we are filled with His Spirit, we soar.

But how are we filled with His Spirit so we can soar and get God’s perspective? We do so by taking in the things of God, by filling ourselves with spiritual things, such as: The Word of God—it’s the first avenue by which we commune with God. We have His Spirit within us, and the Word of God nourishes the Spirit of God. It’s food for the Spirit to grow within us. (Imagine an inner tube in a tire being filled to sustain the tire, and you get the idea of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit). The Spirit in us requires spiritual food, and nourishing our inner spiritual being is done through eating (i.e., reading, meditating on, and memorizing) God’s Word. Just as Ezekiel and John ate God’s Word (see Ezekiel 3:1-2 and Revelation 10:9-10), so must we, spiritually speaking. We eat God’s Word in order to commune with the Holy Spirit. And as we do so, He enables us to see what God wants us to see, to think what God wants us to think, and to act as God wants us to act. We are carried along by the Spirit of God to do what God wants us to do.

In our verse for today, God is desirous that our prayers take on a new clarity as we are carried along by His Spirit. We are to be in prayer for others, alert, focused, filled with the Spirit of God in order to pray wisely for our brothers and sisters. We are called to do battle for them, and we are made sharp and alert to pray as we discern what the Holy Spirit is bringing to our minds as we commune with Him. This is praying in the Spirit.

So, my believing brothers and sisters, get in the basket of God’s hot air balloon by filling yourself up with the knowledge of Him as found in the Word of God so that you may pray His prayers, seeing what He desires us to see and learning how we are to do what God has purposed us to do. Amen.