Speechless before God - Part 1
“Is she breathing?” the nurse said to me frantically as I ran past her carrying my daughter’s limp and listless body. “Yes, I think so”, I yelled back as Wendy and I were sprinting through the hospital. I handed off her to a nurse and Wendy and I followed them into a room. We watched stunned as a team of about of nine doctors and nurses began hovering our little girl and worked feverously. We were both at the same time praying without ceasing and at the very same time we had no words to pray. Have you stood speechless before God? Have you ever been unable utter a single word of a prayer? Has something happened in life where you had to think about taking each breath and there was no way you could think about crying out to God?
What do you do when you need to pray but you are speechless? What do you do when the words do come out or there are no words to pray. We have all faced times in our lives where this was the case, where the words escaped us. Maybe it was when you were angry, grief stricken, confused, felt the pain of loss, or it was a time that you doubted. Think about these questions:Has there ever been a time that you were so angry that you could not speak?Have you ever had so much grief that you could not get one word of a prayer off to God?Are there times that things got so confusing that you did not know what to pray?Have you ever felt the pain of a loss of a loved one, a job, a marriage, a friendship or some other area of your life that you could not say anything to God or to anyone else?Have you ever been so full of doubt that words to a prayer would not come? What do we do when stand speechless before God? Romans 8:26 - 27 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Earlier in Romans 8 Paul writes:Romans 8:22 – 23 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
Paul is letting us know that creation groans for redemption and that we also groan for redemption. The Earth awaits the freedom that will come to it when its bondage is set loose. We ourselves are spiritually redeemed but our bodies are suffering and they groan for that day when the suffering will end. Think about it this way we groan and nature groans and this groaning is a reminder of the promise yet to come. The Spirit groans as we will see are not for a day to come but are for us this very day. Many times in our lives we are in situations that we do not know how to pray or what to pray. In these times we have the Spirit that comes to our aid and intercedes on our behalf. We need to recognize first of all that the Spirit Hears. The Spirit Hears – In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should… Hearing is one of those things in life that some do better than others. Men have the tendency to be selective hearers. I can quote movie lines perfectly but when it comes to doing simple things my wife asks me to do I have no clue. Wendy on a weekly basis will say “before you come to bed, all you need to do is take the kids uniforms which they need in the morning, out of the washer and put them in the dryer” or “all I need you to do is take the clean dishes out of the dish washer and put the dirty ones in” for some reason I never hear these.
Take heart though, the Spirit, even when we have no words to express, He hears perfectly. “In the same way” refers us back to verses 18 -25 to the hope that sustains us in the middle of suffering. The Spirit helps us out or sustains us in the same way when we are weak. We have help in those times of struggle and trial. There are times that all of us will be weak. In these times of weakness we have the knowledge that the Spirit is there to help. When we think about the spirit helping, we need to think about the fact that He hears us. In those times when we do not have the words to say and nothing will come out, He hears us. This is a question that arises, what does the Spirit hear? The Spirit hears those longings in our heart that we are unable to speak. Those things that are deep down inside of us that cannot for whatever reason come out, the Spirit hears this. “For we do not know how to pray as we should” this could have a couple of different meanings to it. It could have the notion that we are found many times praying selfish, ignorant, or narrow prayers. In these times we have the Spirit who is there to help us get our prayers on track to where they should be. Then there is also the notion that we have no idea what to pray in a given situation. This would be the direction that I would lean as far as what this verse means. I say this because I have been one who has stood before God not knowing what the right way to pray was? Standing at the bedside of someone on life support who is struggling, do you pray that God would take them and relieve there pain or do you pray that God would do a miracle. Sometimes you do not know what to pray for. I have also stood before God not having the words.
Wendy and I watched a team of doctors and nurses trying feverously to get an IV into our little girls arm. The veins in the arm had collapsed because of sever dehydration. Then one nurse told the others to step aside, stepped up and found a vein where there seemingly was not one to find. The Spirit heard the words we could not speak and interceded.
More later.
