Groans of the Spirit

“…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. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” Romans 8:26-27

This passage has been a multi-generational reality for my family during deep seasons of suffering. Many decades ago my grandmother wrote of an experience wherein the Holy Spirit took over and groaned on her behalf. She and my grandfather were moving to begin a new pastorate and had to leave her mother. Grandmother was paralyzed with fear and she wrote: “My Mother was with us recovering from the latest hemorrhage of her lungs. Mother decided that she could not accompany us when we moved the following week because she had to stay near her doctors. Mother went back to where she and Daddy lived which was 17 miles in the country. She was without a car or telephone. My brother was in service overseas and there were no other family members. I was in a panic and terribly afraid another hemorrhage would be fatal. That Saturday, as I was trying to cook the noon meal, tears were streaming down my face and splashing wherever there was a “catching place.” After the meal was over and the kitchen cleaned, I went into the back bedroom and got down on my knees - BUT NOT TO PRAY. I WENT TO CRY. I had prayed all the prayers I knew for Mother’s healing over and over again. I had begged God, agonized and claimed all the promises of healing that I knew. The healing had not come. I was kneeling and weeping but there were no words. I now understand that there comes a point in intercession where words are left behind. Where the person himself “becomes” the prayer he is making and “words” as such are unnecessary. After awhile, through my sobbing, I heard, (not with my physical ears, but with the ears of my spirit) a sweet Voice, saying, “You don’t have faith enough for this, but I have, my faith will never fail, and it will encircle your faith, so yours will not fail.” In that moment, I saw the “secret” of faith, His faith quickening mine so that I could believe.”

Fast forward to 2004 as my daughter was in a 30 day rehab center attempting to get clean from heroin addiction. She called and said that she was in despair and needed us to pray. Both Kristen and I went outside in our separate locations and prayed. The Holy Spirit searched my heart and gave voice to my prayers and also gave voice to Kristen’s. She told God that she didn’t even know what to say anymore and that all of the pleas, promises, compromises and deals had already been spoken and broken. She simply sat and allowed the Holy Spirit to groan on her behalf and what she heard was the Father’s divine answer that the Spirit knew she needed to hear, ‘You are my child and I am your Father.’

When your suffering is so intense and the silence from your prayers seems to be deafening, we can be confident in the prayers of the Holy Spirit even when our confidence is gone.