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MAY 20-When I Don’t Know What to Pray
The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon
“Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.”
—Romans 8:26–28
We often hear the first and the last of these three verses independently but rarely in context with one another.
It’s quite comforting that the Spirit intercedes when my groanings are unintelligible and I don’t know what or how to pray.
But this passage also calms the fear that we’re praying things outside of God’s will. For when “we do not know what to pray for as we should,” the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “according to the will of God.”
Many of our prayers are about removing suffering, and that’s okay. Even Jesus prayed this way in the garden: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39).
But just as Jesus’s prayer was not granted, what we hope and pray for may not be what would lead to the greatest eternal good.
But when our hearts join Jesus in adding his, “yet not as I will, but as you will,” we can be sure the Holy Spirit makes all our prayers right, and that God will work all things—our misguided prayers, all of our suffering, the good in our lives, and the things we don’t understand—to good for those who follow him (Romans 8:28).
The post MAY 20-When I Don’t Know What to Pray appeared first on C. E. White.
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The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon
“Now in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.”
—Romans 8:26–28
We often hear the first and the last of these three verses independently but rarely in context with one another.
It’s quite comforting that the Spirit intercedes when my groanings are unintelligible and I don’t know what or how to pray.
But this passage also calms the fear that we’re praying things outside of God’s will. For when “we do not know what to pray for as we should,” the Holy Spirit intercedes for us “according to the will of God.”
Many of our prayers are about removing suffering, and that’s okay. Even Jesus prayed this way in the garden: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39).
But just as Jesus’s prayer was not granted, what we hope and pray for may not be what would lead to the greatest eternal good.
But when our hearts join Jesus in adding his, “yet not as I will, but as you will,” we can be sure the Holy Spirit makes all our prayers right, and that God will work all things—our misguided prayers, all of our suffering, the good in our lives, and the things we don’t understand—to good for those who follow him (Romans 8:28).
The post MAY 20-When I Don’t Know What to Pray appeared first on C. E. White.