Romans Chapter 8 cont'd
In the meantime, the Spirit helps us in our human frailty- we don't even know how to pray or what to pray for. But the Holy Spirit, living within us, prays through us with deeps sighs and longings that go beyond our ability to understand or articulate. And God, who is ever searching human hearts, picks up on the Spirit's signals because he is praying within us in perfect harmony with the Father's will.
Comments:
There is much spiritual resistance in this age to our experience of learning to pray well. First of all, there is our awareness of how small, powerless, uninformed and insecure we are compared to our Creator. (What could we really say to him that would matter in the least?) Then, there are facts like: he is invisible (which can challenge good communication!), our consciousness of our sins and the shame associated with them, the demands of our busy lives and our physical weariness. There is also the experience we've all had with seemingly unanswered prayers that can easily jade our zeal to pray again. Then, of course, there are the preemptive strikes upon us from every angle by a host of invisible evil powers who are actually threatened by the words we might speak into the heart of an all-powerful, living and responsive God.
Still, and indeed, the Scripture reveals throughout its pages that our Heavenly Father invites, commands, longs for, listens to and answers the prayers of children, women and men just like us. At times, we read about the great miracles that God performed in response to the prayers of ordinary people. We wonder if God might have us pray such prayers that evoke the display of his glorious power and might.
I take courage in that the disciples of Jesus asked him to teach them how to pray. It is an art that we must learn and there is effort and extensive practice that goes in to mastering any art. And...the beginning steps of learning an art are typically the most challenging for us. We do not know what heights we may attain in prayer (for anything is possible with God and to those who believe him), but we can definitely begin (or begin again) to pray. When I scan the Scriptures for insight on how to begin to pray, I land on two passages. This above verse, Romans 8:26, is one of them. The other is a few verses later in 8:34: "Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."
As I consider the beginnings of prayer I think first about the two expert intercessors who have been assigned to me. This is not essentially different than Jesus inferring, in John 15:16, that he himself is our "advocate" (which John confirms in his first letter) by referring to the Holy Spirit as "another helper" or "advocate" who will be given to us. Actually, the first steps to an effective prayer life seem to be humbling myself to a point to which I am not ashamed to say that I do not know how to pray well and then receive the truth that Jesus is praying for me in heaven and the Holy Spirit is praying within me and for me here on earth. And they, I hear, pray quite well. Even my groans and sighs regarding the things within and around that weigh me down and burden my soul count as prayer, if I acknowledge the partnership I share with the Spirit of God within me.
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