BEHOLDING

Most people understand beholding the Lord to mean looking up at a God who sits far above in the heavens and who sends His light down to men. They consider beholding God to be looking up to such a light. According to our spiritual experience, however, this is not the meaning of beholding God. Beholding God is to gaze and look at God.

When I meet with a friend, we typically look each other in the eye and measure each other before we say anything. Sometimes after speaking, we look at each other again before we depart. Our looking at each other conveys a kind of warmth and intimacy. It is impossible for two persons to speak to each other without looking at each other. In the same way, beholding God means to gaze on Him when we pray. After we pray a few sentences, we should turn to gaze on Him again. If we do not turn to God or do not fix our gaze on Him but instead hastily utter a few words, it will be difficult for us to enjoy God. When we pray, we must be calm, turn to our spirit, and gaze on Him. Then according to the feeling within, we can speak to Him under His gaze. We should continually behold Him. Such beholding is very precious.

Of course, beholding transpires only in our spirit. We do not behold with our physical eyes. Our eyes are closed when we pray; we do not see anything. In our spirit, however, we are before God and look at Him face to face. We gaze on God by exercising our spirit.

WAITING

Many people think that they need to wait on God when He does not answer their prayers. Generally speaking, this can be considered as waiting on the Lord. This is an outward waiting. However, we are speaking of the waiting that transpires in our spirit. Suppose we are calm and turn to our spirit, but we do not sense that we have the presence of God. As a spiritual fact, God never leaves us, but in our experience we may sense that He is far away or that He is near us. At times we may feel that He is near, but He has not initiated anything. When this happens, we should not say anything quickly. Rather, we should spend some time to wait in His presence.

God should always take the full initiative in our prayer, and we should simply follow. We should pray according to the feelings He gives us. In the same principle, sometimes He purposely delays His coming so that we learn to wait on Him. We cannot care merely for our convenience. We must care for His convenience and wait. We should never be rash or impatient. For this reason the psalms say that we should wait on the Lord.

This kind of waiting is not an easy matter. We would not consider two hours to be too long to converse with a close friend, but we would consider two hours to be a long time to wait. Waiting requires patience. When we pray, there is also the need to wait on God. Sometimes God likes to test us in our prayer. If He does not seem to be near us after we turn to our spirit, and there are no feelings within, we should not initiate anything. If there is no feeling within, there can be no prayer. We should learn to wait. When He moves, we should follow, and when He does not move, we should wait on Him.

Can we spend half an hour to quietly wait on Him without uttering any words? Can we happily tell others that we spent our morning waiting on the Lord in this way? Can we wait for a long time without praying to Him? Perhaps after waiting for some time, we may need to say, “Lord, I must go to work. I am unable to wait on You any longer.” Can we do this?

If we desire to enjoy God in prayer, we must learn these lessons. It is difficult for rough and rash people to pray. In the Old Testament the priest’s garment had bells at the hem. The sound of the bells was to warn the high priest not to be careless (Exo. 28:34-35). Those who come before God must not be careless. The Lord prefers us to listen to Him. Hence, He rebuked Martha for being so anxious and troubled about many things (Luke 10:41). I do not believe Martha could wear the priestly garment without there being the sounds of bells everywhere. Many people are like Martha. Those with quick and rash temperaments cannot pray. We have to learn to wait patiently on the Lord.

MUSING

Good prayer often does not need many words. At times we do not need to say anything when we pray. We can simply muse on God. He cares for our musing. Psalm 104:34 says, “May my musing be sweet to Him.” Prayers in which we continually speak to God may not be good prayers. In good prayer we behold God and muse upon Him.

We may think that musing is something of our mind, but it is actually connected to our spirit. We actively muse upon the attributes of our God in our spirit. He is fine, tender, careful, dignified, glorious, and great. We muse upon His dealings with us and His promises to us. As we muse, our inner being is filled with much feeling. Our musings are prayers, and at the same time they are not prayers. They are like words, yet they are not like words. They are thoughts that arise from our inner being and are a delight to God.

In summary, we should turn to our spirit to touch God in prayer. These prayers do not require many words. Sometimes it is best to spend some time to look at God or remain silent in His presence. We should learn to pray in this way. We should never pray with our own burdens; rather, we should set aside our burdens. We should say, “Lord, I give all my burdens to You and come to You with an unloaded spirit.” We should be calm, turn to our spirit, and behold Him. We should then pray according to the inward sense. As we pray, we should continue to behold Him. We should also wait and muse on Him. If we do this, we will touch and absorb God richly through prayer.