Praying in the spirit has nothing to do with our mind or our thoughts. Our minds can get in the way of a vision God is trying to show us, distract us from taking hold of what God has for us, and sabotage our faith. When you first start praying in the spirit, your mind is in conflict. But as you become stronger in the spirit, your mind submits. The spirit is not the mind’s realm. Our minds cannot comprehend God and try to box him in. But God cannot be constrained. He gives us the ability to touch Him spirit to spirit in prayer, and break away from our natural understanding.

Paul says, “Well then, what should I do? Should I pray in the spirit or in my mind? I will do both. I will pray and sing both in the spirit and in words that I understand.” Don’t be confined. Sometimes your spirit just wants to start singing. Sing to me a new song, God says. When you pray and sing in the spirit, God gives you a new song. When you wait on God, He gives you something new. He is a God of the fresh – fresh prayer, revelation, vision – just like the manna each morning straight from heaven. God doesn’t want us to live on the old. We need to keep moving forward and live in the new. God will not be contained in the boundaries of our past experience. He longs for us to break out with Him into places we have never been before.

Anything that God touches is growing, changing, developing and increasing. God cannot touch anything without it multiplying. That is His nature. God challenges us. He challenges us to grow and change in certain areas of our lives. When God is doing the challenging, oftentimes challenge equals pain. When you feel that challenge, you have a couple choices. You either go with and let the process do its work, or you resist it, miss the opportunity and miss where God wanted to take you. But sometimes it isn’t easy. Because challenge equals change, and change equals pain.

Some people just aren’t ready for it. But resisting change isn’t God-glorifying, and we want to glorify God in everything we do. We want to get to the end of our race and know that we went full force and were fruitful for God. The reason that some people never become fruitful in the kingdom is that they don’t accept God’s challenges and move past the obstacles that are preventing you from moving forward. God is asking if he can’t take us to new places, grow us and grow our lives and capacity. If you yield to it, it gets easier and you get to the point that you yearn for that movement and interaction with God. You just have to step out in faith and yield to God. God is in the “yes” and the willing heart, not the “what ifs” and what you see. Once you climb the mountain, your whole vision changes.

We need to be like Joshua and Caleb. 12 went in, 12 came out, 10 doubted, but 2 saw beyond the circumstances to God’s promise. The 10 that didn’t see it never got to experience the fulfillment of God’s promise. How can two people see the same thing so differently? They heard the same promise, saw the same vision, had the same leader – yet they go in and react completely differently and make completely different choices. It is amazing how powerful our attitude is, how powerful our faith is. Joshua never had any doubt because He believed in the promise of God. David didn’t even look at Goliath, the giant – he looked at God. He didn’t need armor, he just needed God. Sometimes in your heart, you go to fear of the unknown instead of faith and let yourself be ruled by what you see in the natural instead of looking to the bigness of God.