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 through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. – Romans 8:26-27
Many years ago, I went to LA on a 6-week secondment. It was the first time I’d been so far away from friends and family. My first night, jet-lagged and unable to sleep, lying in bed and feeling incredibly alone, I thought, “There is nobody on this continent who knows or cares about me.” Two things happened soon afterward. First, I felt a comforting pressure around me, like I was being hugged. Second, the phone rang: mum calling to see if I was settling in alright. My thoughts, what I thought were vain wishes (and I thought too childish to even pray), materialised. I had only one explanation. God had heard my barely-uttered prayer and answered, “Yes”.
God hears our prayers as they really are, not just what we decide to ‘release’ to Him. It isn’t necessary to censor them or make them sound ‘right’. He hears them as they are and He hears them all, even when we don’t know how or what to pray, when we don’t know how to express ourselves in words.
The Holy Spirit does not only witness to our spirits that we are children of God (vv 15-16), He also helps us to pray. We can pray because we are children of God – that is the sort of access we have to the King of the Universe because He is our Father. The Holy Spirit assures us of our place in God’s family and helps us to speak to Him. The very fact that we can pray is an assurance that we have been adopted. And because of our standing as children of God, we are assured that His answers are good and His timing is perfect. He is a good Father who wants to listen (and does listen) to His children.
But He has done more for us in prayer than simply allowing our thoughts to fly to Him. God, in the Holy Spirit, carries our prayers to our Father – our prayers are precious – and because His Spirit lives in us, He understands completely what we are trying to express. See, the Holy Spirit carries God’s words to us and presses them onto our hearts, and He takes the fullness of our words (expressed and unexpressed) to the Father and presses them onto the Father’s heart. This is the care that God has taken. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He should be able to simply know all things, but He has showed us this incredible way that He has taken special care to understand us.
It may sometimes feel like our prayers are hitting the ceiling and not being heard by God, but the feeling is not the truth. Even in times where we feel like we are not being heard or we feel like we don’t want to pray, we should continue because we know the truth. Our prayers are precious to our Father.
But our prayers are fraught because of our weakness. This is not about us being sinful, but about our limitations as finite and frail people. We lack information and clear-sightedness. We lack wisdom and understanding. We can feel defeated and disheartened, beaten down in some situations, overly optimistic in other situations: our emotions can lead us astray. If we had the perfect sight and understanding of God, we might pray differently. But even in this, the Holy Spirit helps us. He comes alongside us to shoulder the burden of right communication, interceding (pleading) our case before the Father. Where we misspeak, where we lack words to express, He speaks rightly on our behalf. Even expressing the deepest groans of our hearts with groans that are intelligible to our Father.
How is your personal prayer life? How are you taking the time to speak to your Heavenly Father? The Holy Spirit does do all to carry our prayers, but we need to take the time to pray, to direct our minds and hearts to God. We don’t need to be afraid that we don’t have the right way of praying, nor do we need to be afraid that we will mess it up and confuse God. Prayer is one of the incredible privileges we have as children of God: we can be heard, any time, for any reason, with full assurance that He understands completely.
Is there anything holding you back from prayer? Just start, knowing that you have the Holy Spirit who will speak rightly on your behalf; and be assured that the more you pray, the more you hear the prayers of others, the more you read the prayers in Scripture, you will progress in your prayer life. As a child learns how to speak, so we learn how to speak to God. We are patient with children as they learn, as their vocabulary grows, and we advocate for them so that they are understood rightly; our God is patient with us and delights to hear us as our prayer vocabulary grows, and He will understand us.
Do you feel your prayer life has gone stale? Are you finding it difficult to want to pray? It may help to pray with others, perhaps with one or two people who will commit to regular times of prayer together. And if you don’t know what to pray, maybe praying through the Psalms or the prayers in the Epistles will help you to grow in your ‘vocabulary’. There are also many prayers of faithful Christians that have been collected and preserved for us to read. But also remember that you don’t need fancy words to be heard by God.
Prayer is a precious gift. Let us cherish it and work with the Spirit to grow deeper and richer in our prayer life.
Prayer focus:
- Praise God that He comes alongside us to help us to pray.
- Pray that we would love to speak to our Father. Pray that our prayers would be enriched as we spend more time speaking to Him.
- Is there a person or issue on your heart? Take some time to talk to our Father, confident that He hears and understands.
