Sarah Coakley on the Experience of Prayer in the Spirit

In the experience of the Spirit, prayer is found to be a two-way relationship, not just a talking at God, but God (the Holy Spirit) already cooperating in our prayer, energizing it from within, and no less also responding in it, alluring us again, inviting us into a continuing adventure. This is the ‘real thing,’ making ourselves a channel for the Spirit’s work, an intermingling of the human desire for God and the Spirit’s interceding to the Father. So, most interestingly, the Romans 8 theme is clearly stated and acknowledged, even made central. With this then comes the sense of prayer ‘in the Spirit” becoming a uniting thread of life, an all-encompassing relationship, so that prayer becomes no longer one activity (or duty) amongst others, but the wellspring of all activities (adapted, 169).

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Although prayer in the Spirit is often prayer of joy and exaltation, prayer in the Spirit over time, if it is truly affected implicitly by christological issues of prayer and pain, prayer and desolation, prayer and apparent failure… if life in Christ, and thus in intimate relation to the Father, necessarily involved such stages of human testing, then it must be consistent with life in the Spirit too, otherwise the ‘persons’ would be divided. (adapted, 181).