Help, Lord!
October 3, 2006 10:10 am Be Encouraged
“Oh Lord, Kathy is sure a bad influence on my daughter. Would you please break up their friendship before my girl gets hurt . . .”
O-o-h, that sounds kind of harsh. “Uh, Lord . . . I know Kathy has a rebellious attitude because of her parents’ divorce and because she doesn’t know You. Would you please let us have a positive influence for Christ so she could get saved . . .
“Well, actually Lord, I’m a little confused. You know I’m concerned for my daughter; but I also would love to see Kathy find Christ. Please help me know what to pray.”
Have you ever prayed a prayer like that? I wish I had the proverbial nickel for every time I haven’t known what to pray. It probably wouldn’t make me rich, but it would undoubtedly be enough to take my wife Karilee out for a nice evening and dinner.
Well, God understands our dilemma. Trying to balance the sovereign actions of God with our willful desires is probably the most common problem in our prayers. So God has taken the initiative to help us by assigning a special ministry of prayer to the Holy Spirit on our behalf:
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. And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God – Romans 8:26,27 (ESV)
What is it that the Holy Spirit actually does? These verses say that He helps us when we don’t know what to pray. I know how to pray – it’s what that has me off-balance.
You see, I don’t always know what the will of God is in any particular situation. Is it to use our home to influence Kathy for Christ, or is it to break up the friendship between Kathy and my daughter? But the Holy Spirit knows exactly what the will of God is – so He jumps in and prays for me. In other words, He takes my crazy, mixed-up prayer and straightens it out as it flies toward the throne of God.
I pray, “Lord, take away this pain.” Then the Holy Spirit says, “Oops. Wrong prayer,” and changes it to say, “Lord, use this pain to help me grow spiritually and to give me a platform to bring glory to Your name.” That’s how it comes to God – and God says, “My, that’s a wonderful prayer. I think I’ll answer it just that way.”
Now, that’s often why the answer to our prayers is different than the way we prayed. The Holy Spirit is helping us by correcting our prayers so that God can answer them according to His perfect will.
Understand, though – this is no mechanical thing like a computer program that automatically corrects your spelling. The verses say that the Holy Spirit interecedes for us with groanings too deep for words. This is the normal word for interecede, but something special is added to it. The Greek preposition “huper” (from which we get our word “hyper”) is added to the front of the word so that the Holy Spirit is actually hyper-interceding for us. Wow! That’s pretty intense.
Then, the emotional element is added: . . . with groanings too deep for words. You see, the Holy Spirit is so concerned about our relationship to Christ that His prayer on our behalf is filled with emotional groanings which cannot begin to be verbalized. It’s like a gut-reaction that totally identifies with the intense pain that surrounds our confused prayer.
If you knew that I was agonizing in intercessory prayer for you with regard to some problem in your life, you would probably be greatly encouraged that I cared enough for you to pray that way on your behalf. Well, that is exactly what the Holy Spirit does every time you bring your troubles to God in prayer. He helps you by hyper-interceding for you, with agonizing emotion, that God will do exactly what is good and best for your life and the life of the person for whom you’re praying.
How encouraging is that! And, you can count on it – because God said so.
~ Dan Hayden
