Hearing His Voice #214

The Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

Romans 8:26-27

Sometimes we know exactly what to pray for. We understand enough to make specific requests that are consistent with God’s will. Other times, we want to pray but don’t know what to say, so we turn our prayers into wishes and hopes and never really voice them. But if we pray anyway, even if those prayers come out as incoherent thoughts or heartfelt groans, we are participating in a divine phenomenon. The God who lives within us appeals to the God who is above us. He joins Himself with our spirits and births His desires within us, moving us to pray His will—even when we don’t consciously know what His will is.

This is a different dimension of experiencing God’s voice than we normally expect. Not only does the Holy Spirit speak to us, He speaks through us; and not only does He speak through us to others, He speaks through us to the Father Himself. Somehow we get caught up in a conversation among members of the Trinity. They could have this conversation without us, but for some reason God has chosen to work through human agency to get things done in the world. Human beings need to ask and believe. And we need lots of help doing that.

The Spirit helps us in our weakness, praying the things we didn’t know to pray. Sometimes that comes out of our mouths in unexpected words, sometimes it rises as sounds and groans from our deepest needs, and sometimes we pray seemingly normal prayers that the Spirit takes and reinterprets for the Father’s purposes. However it works, it’s a sacred process. We receive the heart of God and are enabled to pray it back to Him.

Holy Spirit, thank You for pleading on my behalf—for taking my incoherent longings and lining them up with what You wanted to do all along. Please tell the Father everything that my words are insufficient to express.