Do you struggle getting through to God in your prayer time?  I believe that most of us struggle with our prayer life because we have not been taught how to pray break through prayer.  So, what is break through prayer?  In Ephesians 1:15-19 Paul gives us an example of break through prayer and again in Ephesians 3:14-21.  This is not how most of us pray on a regular basis, but we should learn and use this kind of prayer when we pray for ourselves and others.

I want to address one of the most important aspects of break through prayer – the Trinitarian nature of the prayer.  You will notice in each of these break through prayers Paul mentions within his prayer all three Persons of the Trinity; Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit.  The Trinity is foundational to Christianity.  If there is no belief in the Trinity then there is no Christianity.  But this presents us with what I think is a big question that most people have; Who do I pray to?  Do I pray to the Father, Jesus or Holy Spirit?  The bible is clear that we are to pray to the Father and Jesus asks us to pray to Him also.  No where are we told to pray directly to the Spirit, but he is a Person and in John 14 we are told that we have fellowship with Him, so we should mention the Holy Spirit in our prayer for His role is to fill us and intercede for us.   I want to share a story that I hope will help explain the unique roles and relationship of each Person of the Trinity.

I had the privilege a few years ago to preach out in some rural areas of South Africa.  Everyone in the little church I was preaching in spoke Zulu and no one spoke English except the interpreter and the pastor.  I was completely out of my comfort zone and at first felt a huge relational barrier between the congregation and myself.  I believe this is a similar feeling that many of us have as we pray.  We struggle with a relational barrier and we struggle with a language barrier of how to communicate.  At first we are uncomfortable and insecure in communicating with God and not sure how it all works.  The only way I had access to speak to this church was because I first had a relationship with the pastor.  He introduced me to his church and invited me to speak.  This is Jesus’ role in our relationship with the Father. We only have access to the Father through Jesus.  I only had access to this congregation through the pastor.  And it is through Jesus that we are introduced to the Holy Spirit. This pastor friend of mine introduced me to his congregation and then introduced me to the interpreter. He then sat down next to me on the stage and waited for me to speak.  This was my first time to preach through an interpreter so I was not sure quit how it was all going to work.  At first I spoke too long before letting the interpreter speak and he had to ask me to repeat things, but eventually the interpreter and I got into a good rhythm that started to communicate well with the congregation.  And I noticed that the interpreter was adding body language and things to what I was saying that made better sense of my words to the congregation than the words I was preaching.  The interpreter was playing the role of the Holy Spirit. He knew intimately the pastor and the congregation and was taking my words and doing more with them than I could.  Romans 8:26 says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”  The pastor was always sitting close by and adding encouraging words along the way as well.  And an amazing thing happened at the end of the service.  The pastor and interpreter both interpreted words from the congregation back to me.  This is also the role of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives to connect us to the Father.  They were moving me deeper into intimate fellowship with their whole church family.  The more I spoke to them and the more they spoke to me, the more we all grew in intimate fellowship with one another.

I pray that you will get break through in your prayer life so you can truly experience the fellowship of the Trinity.