Thought for Friday,, 15 March 2024

Romans 8:26-27

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress.  For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. 

 But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.  And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

When we think of praying to God, the first thing that will come to mind for some of us is the prayer that we repeat together at morning worship, the Lord’s prayer, which we probably learned at Primary School or Sunday School.  It could also be ‘The Lord Bless Thee and Keep Thee’ which we hear sung by the congregation at baptisms.

When we feel the need to talk to God privately, it should be a deeply personal and spiritual experience.  In previous thoughts, we have considered the need to pray to God in a spirit of thankfulness when life is going well for us as well as the times we are looking for help, comfort and guidance.  Prayer is the way to communicate directly with our God and it allows us to share our thoughts, feelings and needs with him in a way that is personal to each of us.

When we attend church, we hear whoever is leading worship praying on behalf of the congregation and each worship leader will go about this in their own way.  In the same way, when each of us come to the Lord in prayer, we don’t need to copy anyone else, we just need to pray in a manner that is honest and true to ourselves and in a way that our Saviour will recognise our sincerity and belief in Him.

I’ve heard of people that feel the need to pray but are not too sure how to go about it.  Firstly, I would recommend talking to God in the same way we would talk to friends and relatives.  There is no need for big or fancy words.  The important thing is to tell him of our joys, hopes, fears and struggles in this life he has blessed us with.  It should be a personal relationship we have with Jesus and there are no rules to follow.  We should approach prayer with confidence that God will do what is right for us in accordance with the plans he has for each one of us.

We should also consider that communication between ourselves and God does not only go in one direction.  It is right for us to talk to God in prayer but we also need to be prepared to make time to just listen and allow God a chance to come into our very hearts.

It is good to remember that God knows all our weaknesses and our desires but still wants to hear us talk to him.  Whether through prayer, meditation or being present at public worship, communicating with our lord is an essential part of our faith journey.  Today’s reading is encouraging in that if there are things we should be taking to God in prayer that we are omitting, the Holy Spirit is sent to make this right and take these missed prayers to God on our behalf.

Prayer – Heavenly Father, hear our prayers both said and unsaid and help us be worthy servants to you in this life.  We thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to pray the prayers to you that are unknown to us on our behalf.  Lord, we sincerely pray that at all times, your will is done.  Amen