TD Jakes - Holy Spirit Prayer
So I asked God if praying with understanding constitutes an intelligent prayer, while praying in the spirit is unintelligent. For years, people who prayed in the spirit claimed it was unintelligent, but God said there’s a difference between being unintelligent and being unintelligible. Put my definition on the screen: there is a difference between intelligent and unintelligible. The definition of «unintelligible» is «impossible to understand,» like dolphin sounds are unintelligible to humans. However, just because it is unintelligible does not mean it is unintelligent. Just because you cannot hear a dog whistle doesn’t mean that you do not understand what you’re saying; it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t understand what you are saying.
So instead of getting all these nosy people as your prayer partners who just want to pry into your business and gossip about you, you need a prayer partner that you can trust. God gave you one: the Holy Spirit. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. It is not unintelligent just because it is unintelligible. When God spoke to the frogs, Pharaoh didn’t understand it, and Moses didn’t understand it either. When God spoke to the rivers, and the waters turned to blood, even Moses didn’t understand what God said, but the waters did. What manner of man is this?
You better wait; there are some things going on in your life right now that only God can reveal to you. You keep stirring the pot, and you don’t know what you’re doing, but if you would shut your mouth and let the Holy Spirit, who knows the will of God, speak to you, you must stop letting your moods control your moments. The devil is trying to steal your moment with your mood, but the devil is a liar because God gave me this word to be a curse breaker, and today, before you walk out of this building, I’m going to break the curse that came from your grandmother, down to your mother, and onto you. And by the way, your daughter is watching you. But if you utter «prosperity,» I’m calling for my peace. Lord, come down; I feel you. I dare you, I beg you, I challenge you to climb over your small understanding and open your mouth, making a sound unto God.
There’s a language in your belly, a language in your spirit. The Spirit is trying to intercede through your mouth. For the next three minutes, I want everything that has breath to open your mouth, shut off your mind, and let God speak in this place—from the bathroom to the last row of the balcony, from the back room to the right-hand corner, from the front row to the musicians. If you’re watching online, open your mouth! I don’t care what your neighbors say; I don’t care what they think in the apartment below you; I don’t care what they think above you. Open up your mouth; the power of life and death is in your tongue. Come on, my three brothers, come back with your three sons. I’m getting ready to close, but I feel an earthquake about to break loose in this place. I feel a tidal wave; I feel a tsunami here right now. Hallelujah to God!
This is a noisy text; I need a noisy crowd, I need some noisy team members, I need some noise-makers. I remember the year was 1999, and Mama died. I grieved with it; I preached with it; I went to work with it; I returned home with it. I’m a compartmentalist, so I was able to compartmentalize it, but I couldn’t get rid of it. When busyness slowed down, the grief surfaced, jumping up like Jason in a horror movie. I couldn’t shake it, and Joseph Garlington came to our church. You remember Joseph? He was teaching on prayer languages that had nothing to do with what I was going through. I knelt over there, threw my hands up, and started praying in tongues. To my surprise, what I could not reach, what cards could not reach, what people could not reach, what friends or relatives could not reach, as I prayed to God, He who searches my heart interceded for me according to the will of God. Suddenly, I felt a release in my spirit.
I’m not preaching against counseling or therapy; if you need it, go get it. But I found relief in my soul; I found relief in my body. I slept for the first full night in months because I stopped praying from my head and my pain, and the Comforter interceded for me. I don’t know if you have anything weighing on you. It may not be grief; it may be worry, angst, anxiety, inferiority, imposter syndrome, or some other crisis going on in your life. Yes, treat it in every way you can: go to therapy, go to counseling, and seek help. But some challenges are spiritual warfare, and you’re going to have to pull them out by the Spirit. I think spiritual warfare is using every tool God gives you to move towards better. Somebody shout «better!»