The Intercession of the Spirit
“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know mot what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
ROMANS viii. 26.
>”SHERE are times in this human life in which we have no language but a cry,
a wail that can find no words, a groaning that cannot be uttered. There is no speech and there is no language; the voice ot supplication is not heard; only from the inmost recesses of the soul there rise up unspoken cries which are eloquent in their very speechlessness. They ask for nothing; they know not what they ought to pray for. But Paul says that to every one of these cries there is imputed the value of a prayer. Each of them is counted an intercession of the Spirit. The Father translates the lispings of His child into His own language; He imputes to me what I would say if I could speak. He helps my infirmity in asking by reading between the lines. He interprets the groans of the heart not by its feeble capacity for expression, but by the largeness of His own love. The prayers of the Spirit are the unuttered voices of the soul.
O my Father, I have moments of deep unrest — moments when I know not what to ask by reason of the very excess of my wants. I have in these hours no words for Thee, no conscious prayers for Thee. My cry seems purely worldly; I want only the wings of a dove that I may flee away. Yet all the time Thou hast accepted my unrest as a prayer. Thou hast interpreted its cry for a dove’s wings as a cry for Thee. Thou hast received the nameless longings of my heart as the intercessions of Thy Spirit. They are not yet the intercessions of my spirit; I know not what I ask. But Thou knowest what I ask, O my God. Thou knowest the name of that need which lies beneath my speechless groan. Thou knowest that nothing but the river of Zhy pleasures can ever satisfy my thirsty soul. Thou knowest that because I am made in Thine image I can find rest only in what gives rest to Thee; therefore Thou hast counted my unrest unto me for righteousness, and hast called my groaning Thy Spirit’s prayer.