January 4

The Spirit Intercedes

             Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.                                                                                                                         

Romans 8:26-27

I treasure this passage for a couple of reasons.  First off, there are many times that I find myself in the position where I do not know what to pray.  Do I pray for my son’s healing?  Do I pray instead that the challenging circumstances lighten?  Or do I pray that he and I and all around us will develop deeper character and more highly developed skills as we face the hardships of this life?  I am not sure what to bring to God and what to hope for.  What I know is that I have this…weight, this mass of raw emotion that is a mixture of all my fear and joy and fatigue and anger and mourning and hope that lives inside me.  It is not eloquent.  It is not articulate.  It is not neatly organized into categories and priorities.  It simply exists and lends a fervor and a desperation to my internal life.

The comforting thing is that I do not need an eloquent prayer.  There are not special code words or magical phrases that unlock God’s favor.  All that I need to do is bring the reality of who I am and the magnitude of what I feel and simply be present before my Creator.  The Spirit of God sees me…understands the totality of what I am and what I desire and then intercedes for me far better than I could advocate for myself.  I do not need to have a perfectly composed prayer life in order to be heard, which is a great relief.

The second reason that I deeply treasure this passage has to do with my son and all the people that I know and have worked with for whom speech is a challenge, if not an impossibility.  God does not need to hear them recite the Lord’s Prayer to hear their heart.  He does not need them to follow a form or even articulate a single syllable.   The Spirit knows.  He knows them.  He knows their Spirit.  He hears the cries of their heart without any confusion or misinterpretation.  There are no ignored social cues or misunderstood metaphors to get in the way.  Prayer can work heart to heart and soul to soul as we trust the Spirit of God to represent us to the Father with love and pride and hope. 

A moment to reflect:

Try praying without words. If that is baffling, try to picture yourself sitting by Jesus and imagine communicating your heart without using words.