Yes, I know that it is singular and sounds awkward, but I only have one today. Granted, there are surely plently of thingS, plural, that I don’t know. However, I’m only fixating on one today.
I’ve always been taught that when we don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit will intercede for us with words we could not even understand. That when we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit will.
Romans 8:26 says “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Interesting. It doesn’t say “WHEN we do not know…”. It says, “We do not know…” In other words, we as humans cannot fathom God’s will or how He is orchestrating things on His terms. Sure, I believe He can reveal portions of it to us, but our teensy little minds couldn’t get a grasp of the big picture. So to truly pray for God’s will, we do not know how. We’re like little kids who don’t know what to ask for. I am looking at this completely different.
So like instead of the Holy Spirit being some prayerful pinch hitter, he is THE hitter. He isn’t waiting until we are 2 outs down to step in, helpless and up against the wall. He’s always there hitting for us. He’s like a translator. In essence, this is saying that we can’t speak God’s prayer language because we just can’t grasp the concepts. But because God knows that, He gave us the Holy Spirit as an interpretor who is constantly on duty.
I think of it as a relief. I don’t have to worry about whether or not I’m praying right or saying the correct words or pattern of words as if they were some magic spell that had to be chanted just so to get the desired result. I can just talk to Him and the Holy Spirit does all the relaying to be sure that the words are meaningful and right and according to God’s will. Cool, huh?
