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
Go ahead, you can admit it, prayer is hard work. There is a weakness within us that makes praying difficult. Paul names it right here: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” That weakness is our humanity, our flesh, and every honest believer feels it.
When I sit down to pray, I can suddenly think of ten other things I ought to be doing. Does that happen to you? My mind wanders. Sometimes I simply don’t feel like praying. And often I genuinely don’t know what to pray for. Paul says exactly that: “we do not know what to pray for as we ought.” If you’ve ever knelt down and not known where to begin, you are in good company, the apostle felt it too.
But here is the good news that changes everything about prayer: you are not praying alone. “The Spirit himself intercedes for us.” The same Spirit who lives in you takes hold of your weak, stumbling prayers and carries them to the Father. When you don’t have the words, He does. When you can only groan, He translates those groanings “too deep for words” into the very language of heaven.
Think about what that means. There are really two ways to pray, in the flesh or in the Spirit. If you pray in the flesh, in your own effort, you pray in weakness, and those prayers tend to bounce off the ceiling. But if you pray in the Spirit, you pray with strength, and your prayers reach the throne of God.
And don’t miss when the Spirit shows up. He helps us “in our weakness”, not in our strength, but in our weakness. Your weakness is not a disqualification from prayer; it’s the very place the Spirit comes to help. Life can knock you flat on your back. And when it knocks you off your feet, that’s the time to get on your knees and cry out to God, even if all you can manage is a broken sigh on a wave of tears.
Those wordless prayers, the unspoken aches you can’t even put into sentences, are not lost. They rise from a breaking heart straight into the presence of God, carried by the Spirit Himself. You don’t have to be eloquent. You don’t have to have the right words. You just have to come.
Wouldn’t you like to pray with power? Wouldn’t you like to know your prayers are actually getting through? You can, not by becoming a more impressive pray-er, but by leaning on the Helper God has placed within you. Depend on the Holy Spirit in prayer just as you depend on Him for witnessing and for living.
So stop waiting until you feel strong enough or articulate enough to pray. Come weak. Come wordless if you must. The Comforter, the Helper, is right there to pray you through.
PRAYER IN OUR OWN STRENGTH STAYS WEAK, BUT THE SPIRIT HELPS US IN OUR WEAKNESS AND PRAYS US THROUGH.
