The Spirit’s prayers for us

In John 14:17, Jesus said we would “know the Spirit, for he lives with you and will be in you.” Paul then shows us how we can know the Spirit is living in us, because, Romans 8:26, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” 

And one weakness in particular: “not knowing how and what to pray” (26). Which isn’t a criticism; instead, it ties in with “the creation being subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it” (20). God limited us on purpose. He made us “weak in our natural selves” (6:19), which can be seriously frustrating, as Paul himself found out. Try as hard as he could to “do what is good, he couldn’t carry it out” (7:18). It was so frustrating. But it made him realize his weakness and his need for help, and that’s when he discovered that help beyond himself was available (24-25).

And the same in our frustration with prayer. On the one hand, we’re so fortunate in having the Spirit living in us, because our minds are “set on what the Spirit desires” (8:5). Search our hearts – as God does – and what he finds in us is “the mind of the Spirit” (8:27).

On the other hand, we’re still frustratingly stuck in weak bodies. And until our bodies are “redeemed” (23) and freed from their “bondage to decay” (21), we’ll be doing a lot of “groaning inwardly” (23) at our weakness, and not knowing how and what to pray when things happen to us and to others that we simply cannot see the sense in. It’s so frustrating. But from Paul’s example maybe that’s good, because is there help beyond us available too?

Yes there is, according to Paul: it’s in the Spirit’s prayers for us. And very personal prayers too, since the Spirit is in us, and therefore knows every frustration we’ve got. So when we run out of words to express our frustrations the Spirit “intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (26). He loves and cares for us that much. And that’s what the Father sees the Spirit doing in and for us. Which is exactly what he gave the Spirit to us for, to dive into the depths of our frustrations and feeling them with us, and then “interceding for us in accordance with God’s will” (27), so that we rise up from the depths fully confident again in the Father’s will and purpose. 

No wonder the Father answers the Spirit’s prayers for us. And we get to know the Spirit’s doing this for us too. How? By “Romans 8:28”….(next blog)