There’s praying in the spirit, and there’s groaning in the spirit. When you pray in tongues, your spirit prays (1 Corinthians 14:14). So, it’s your spirit that prays in tongues, even though the language (utterance) is given to your spirit by the Holy Ghost. Moreover, when you pray in tongues, your spirit is exercised and activated.

 

Groaning in the spirit, however, isn’t initiated from your spirit but through the Holy Spirit. This happens often to those who are totally yielded to the Spirit. You may start out by praying in tongues and activating your spirit, but it gets to the point where the Holy Spirit takes over. At that point, you’re no longer just speaking in tongues, but communicating with deep sighs and groanings of the Spirit; no words are being formed, and you can’t explain why you’re crying and groaning; the Spirit Himself has taken over the prayer, because there’s something He needs to pray about through you. Hallelujah! This is the highest kind of prayer.

 

The thing about this kind of prayer is that you can’t just decide you want to groan in the Spirit as in the case of speaking in tongues; it’s the Spirit that initiates it. However, you can get into that spirit of prayer and yield fully to Him. To achieve this, you must have your emotions in communication with the Holy Spirit’s emotions, because this groaning is actually an emotion of the Spirit being expressed. It’s an expression of deep emotions; but this time, it’s the emotion of the Holy Spirit, and He expresses it through us.

 

So, give your emotions to Him. Let Him express Himself through you. David said, “...Unite my heart...” (Psalm 86:11). That’s what happens a lot of time in worship. Through worship, we unite our emotions with His. These are the secrets from God’s kingdom given to His children to live a successful life. Learn to always yield yourself to the Spirit, and give your emotions to Him in prayer.