Back a lot of years ago, I wrote a post about the struggle of praying in the midst of brokenness. Here’s an updated version for 2020.
“Similarly, the spirit also helps us out in our weakness. For example, we don’t know beans about praying, but the Spirit himself speaks up for our unexpressed concerns. And he who x-rays our hearts understands the Spirit’s approach, since the Spirit represents Christians before God.” Romans 8:26-27 The Cotton Patch Version
Clarence Jordan (translator of The Cotton Patch Version) is right. I don’t know beans about praying. Prayer absolutely blows my mind: God, the creator of the universe, wants to be in communication with me? I really can’t grasp that.
But I pray anyway. I pray to music. I pray Scripture. And I pray for loved ones. (Names changed.)
- For Alma and Beatrice and Carol, homebound by circumstances outside their control in need of more comfort than I could ever provide.
- For Denise and Elmer, Florence and Grayson, Helen and Ian whose sons died a decade ago yet the pain is new every morning.
- For baby Jenna in the hospital and for Karl in prison.
- For families I know–too many–born into poverty, struggling to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, only to find they have no boots.
- For the ailing, the lonely, the grieving, the depressed, the hurting . . .
Yeah, I gotta tell ya. I don’t know beans about praying.
But thanks be to God, knowing is not necessary. Romans 8:26-27 (NRSV) says “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (emphasis mine)
And when I read that I sigh: a sigh of relief. I sigh because suddenly I remember, I’m not alone. I sigh, I breathe, remembering that Alma is not alone, and Beatrice isn’t and neither is Carol. The Spirit is sighing with me, magnifying those sighs, translating them into words that I can’t seem to find, building them into bridges from the hearts of the hurting to the very heart of God. I sigh knowing there’s a bridge for Denise and Elmer and all grieving parents and that Karl and Jenna can cross it too. And I sigh so deep within my spirit, beyond the flood of tears that chokes my heart for those living in the grip of poverty. I sigh with relief because as I do, I find that the Spirit is already there; the bridge is already built. Everyone has brand new boots with nice long straps. I don’t have to find the words to the perfect prayer; because “. . .God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, and the Spirit intercedes” for me.
Even though I don’t know beans about praying.
Ahhhhh.
