Weakness and Spirituality

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  Romans 8:26

It is not a sin to be weak.  Weakness is a human condition.  Frailty plagues the most righteous man or woman, especially when in the midst of suffering.  Quickly, every one of us loses our spiritual perspective.  Our prayers reflect this vacuum.

Job was righteous.  God said so.  Yet he couldn’t understand why he was suffering and his prayers proved his confusion.  His friends thought they knew the mind of God and probably prayed for him, but wrongly.

The disciples, as much as they loved Jesus, proved to be weak prayer partners.  In the garden, when Jesus needed them most, they feel asleep during Jesus’ hours of anguish.

Elijah, a prophet of courageous proportions, succumbed to a weakened state after a great spiritual victory.  Exhausted and emotionally drained, he prayed that the Lord would take his life.  The flesh and the spirit are so integrally connected.  When the body fails, the spirit is confused.

If I don’t know how to pray for myself, how can I be sure anyone else will be able to pray for me correctly?  The answer lies in my ‘best friend’ in intercession.  The Holy Spirit.  He is aware and fully engaged with my story.  He knows my limited ability to understand God’s sovereign plan for my life.  When I cry out to God and I am wordless, much like a baby in distress, He hears my weeping and interprets it to the Father.  He perceives my faltering words, my frustrating silences and interprets those too.  He tells my story better than I can and He tells it with omniscience.  He prays about everything with perfect perspective.

So many days, I pray…. “Oh holy Spirit, rise up in me and teach me how to pray.  Form my words.  Pray when my language fails.”  When I despair that no one might be praying for me, I have been led to remember that Jesus, Himself, is praying for me.  The Holy Spirit is praying for me.  Could the friendship of God be more perfectly proven than in this?

I rest in Your words, Your groanings, and even Your tears for the places in my life which have left me speechless and wanting. Thank you for being such a friend. Amen