Speechless Before God - Part 2
The Spirit Intercedes - but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us …because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Think about the times in your life when your parents helped out without you ever asking. I remember as a boy wanting to buy some fishing gear from a store called “Uncle Joe’s Woodshed” and I thought I had the right amount of money, but when the bill was rung up I was a few dollars short. Before I had a chance to look at or even as my dad for help, he was handing the cashier the money I owed. My dad interceded on my behalf.
“but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us” Paul is letting us know that even though we do not have the words to pray or know what to pray that the Spirit of God will step in with petitions or prayers for us. Those times when we do not have the words, the Spirit of God is there for us. He is interceding for us, which is to say that the Sprit is pleading for us before God the Father.
“because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” So for us even when we do not know what to pray or how to pray we have the security of knowing that the Spirit of God is pleading for us to God the father. Think then of this, that when the Spirit of God is interceding or pleading for us, that because the Sprit is also God, the prayers will always be in God’s will. The Spirit cannot pray a prayer that is outside His will because it would against the whole nature of God. There should be great comfort in knowing that God’s will is being prayed for in your life even in those times when you do not know what to pray.
Have you ever been frustrated by the fact that you cannot find the words to pray? In those times we can relax knowing that the Spirit is praying. But we also, according to Romans 8:34 have Christ who is at the right hand of the father interceding for us. Romans 8:34b Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. We need to find and take comfort in having the Spirit of God as well as Christ pleading to the Father on our behalf.
Fast forward 6 months – Mckayla has another episode and we again have to rush her to the hospital. She has all the same symptoms as she did the last time and is very ill. The doctors at the hospital have no idea how to treat her, so the need to take her to a larger hospital. I am at her bedside and Wendy is at home just a couple of minutes away gather some stuff for us for the night. Wendy called and I had to tell her to come back quickly because they were going to Life Flight our little 5 year old girl. She is sent by Life Flight to University of Virginia Medical Center, but they will not let Wendy or I fly with her. We had to watch them load our little girl on an ambulance and then hear the helicopter take off. Where we were we could not see the helicopter, we could just hear it taking off. For Mckayla she would be to the hospital in about 15 minutes, but for Wendy and I it was a 45 minute to hour drive. This drive was again a time when there were no words to pray, just us pleading without knowing what to say to God. It was the longest and most agonizing time of our lives. We had the Spirit interceding and Christ for us as we were literally groaning during our drive to get to our little girl.
The Spirit Groans – with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is,
Groaning is something that I now do when I have exercised and then try get up after sitting a while. Groaning is something my kids do when I ask them to do something that they do not want to do. Groaning is what I do when I have to stand in the woman’s department holding my wife’s pocketbook while she tries on cloths, boy do I groan. The good thing for us is that the kind of groaning that the Spirit does on our behalf makes a real difference in our lives.
“with groanings too deep for words” We have seen how creation groans and we groan and now we see that the Spirit makes intercessions for us with groans. The idea of groan here is an intense yet inaudible sighing according to a consensus of scholars. Inaudible sigh was kind of an odd thing when I thought about it. Inaudible sighing is that is it like inedible food or invisible art? Really what is it though is a powerful and amazing thing. Inaudible sighs are too deep for words according to this passage. In other words, they are what is felt and known in the heart and yet they never come to words.
Some have interpreted this passage as having something to do with praying in tongues. When you look closely to the passage this has nothing to do with the person who is praying and the Spirit is not saying anything either, so it really is not about tongues. What it is about is the Spirit is having nonverbal communication with the Father.
“and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is” Searches here gives us the idea of careful investigation or to find out and this is done by God the Father. Notice that this is in the present tense, so it is something that God is continually doing. God is finding out what is in our hearts so that he knows what the mind of the Spirit is so the He can supply it.
This passage is not about not praying but it is about praying when there are no words. You see there are times in our lives where we can take this passage say that it means something that it does not. Some have said, “I have no words to pray now, then I am just going to let the Spirit take care of it”. Sometime we could use this passage as a cop out to not pray for the things that we need to be praying for. We should come to the place where we understand that this passage is about having a prayer in the heart but being unable to get it out. This is not about just not praying because something is uncomfortable to pray for.
Wendy’s heart and my heart were filled with prayers for our little girl. Wendy and I slept in the hospital room at the University of Virginia Medical Center with her for five days, never leaving. We watched her go through test after test. We had a steady stream of doctors coming and going. Mckayla had in terrible pain in one leg and being doctors they had to touch it and when she would be in pain, we would be in pain. Her heart rate raced for days. Her heart raced at 150 beats per minute or higher for about 3 days straight. The brought an echocardiogram and checked her heart. The doctor was checking her heart and she looked up at him and asked “do you see Jesus in there”. After five days of being there she was discharged. She was discharged and we had no answers. They had done every type of testing you could imagine including genetic testing. They could not find anything. Every time she would get sick, we would live in fear that it was going to happen again.
A couple of months later we moved to the
Baltimore area. We thought for sure that we would find answers from the medical staff at Johns Hopkins. We again were brought to the point were we were left with no answers from anyone, anywhere.
During this time, Wendy and I had no words to pray. The doctors had no answers and nothing really to say. Our gratitude was to the Spirit of God who expressed our daughters needs with groans to the Father.
What do you do when you stand speechless before God?
When you think that your inability to pray would be a hindrance to God working. Remember the Spirit Hears, the Spirit intercedes, and the Spirit groans.
In 2008:Pray more when God is silent.Pray more when God answers unexpectedly.Pray more from day to day.Pray when you are speechless before God.
