Praying with the Spirit

 

"Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness,"

Romans 8:26.

My morning worship includes a prayer time for people I know who are in need of healing, guidance, strength, and wisdom. I pray for the Red Sox, the Patriots, and the Celtics. I also include a prayer for our church that "God may restore her fortunes like the watercourses of the Negeb." (Ps. 126:4). I pray these prayers in confidence that God hears them and the Spirit intercedes according to the will of God. My prayer form follows A.C.T.S. Adoration, Confession,Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Thus, when Paul says, "the Spirit helps us pray when we do not know what to pray,"(Romans 8:26), I don't know what I don't want. 

James Dunn, a British New Testament scholar, says Paul's grammar in verse 26 defines the scripture differently than we usually think of it. He says it's not that we know what we need and merely lack the right words for asking it. As he says, we "do not know what to want," let alone how to ask for it. So to clarify "what to want", the Spirit intercedes, aligning prayer on our behalf to the will of God for us. Then in verses 28-30, Paul adds that the Spirit intercedes for us in the present, the past, and the future. 

For me it worked this way. In a recent conversation with a friend about aging and crossing the "big 80", the topic of what's next arose. What is there left to do in this decade which I may well not complete? I had no idea what I wanted to do let alone even know how to pray about it. Then my friend said, "take stock of the life you have lived and consider what you still want to do, say, or experience in this life." The Spirit interceded in my weakness.

The Good News is that, by God's Grace, the Spirit intercedes aligning us all with God's love.