Hope Series Week 4 : Day 4

Hope: Devotional series

Week 4: Romans 8:18-28

Day 4

Welcome to day 4 of this weeks’ devotionals in our series about Hope. Today we focus on Romans 8:26-27

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

“Read your Bible and pray every day, pray every day and you will grow, grow, grow.” This was a song we grew up with in Sunday school. Maybe calling it Sunday school wasn't such a good idea, because many things we learn in school, we never use again. For many people, when they read today's verses, they think Paul is just reminding us that prayer is important. And when we don't know how to pray, the Holy Spirit will help us. Of course, this is very encouraging. Paul includes himself in the “we” that don’t know how to pray as we ought to. So, I’m not the only one struggling with prayer. And the Spirit will help me too.

But when we see the larger vision, we have spoken about so far this week, we realize that what Paul is writing about prayer is much more than just a reminder to do something we as Christians ought to do. Paul is showing us what it looks like to be God's glorious children in a world that still awaits total renewal.

When we share in Our Father’s vision for his whole creation, a creation that God loved so much that Jesus gave Himself to die to guarantee a better future, we are called to participate in making that vision a reality. Through the Holy Spirit, that future, and God’s love that made it possible, is already working in us. What does this work look like and how do we participate? This is our calling to prayer. When we are confronted by the brokenness in a world that is groaning, longing to be made totally new, we groan with this world in prayer, because that is what the Spirit is doing within us.

Isn’t it true that, many times when we see the brokenness in homes, places of work, or communities, we don’t even know how to pray. But because we believe, on the one hand, that all will be made new, and on the other hand, that God the Spirit uses us to pray for Our Father’s kingdom to come and His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven, we can remain prayerfully present, even if our prayers are just a sigh. The Father Himself uses those prayers to bring about signs of His New Creation.

Prayer is also what we see when we behold King Jesus and His kingdom work. Now, his Spirit helps us to share in this work, by becoming people of prayer. This was one of the first identity markers of the church. They were a movement that shared in the prayer ministry of the King by His Spirit.

And, like Christ, we don't pray from a distance. We pray as people who feel the brokenness of creation in our own bodies. That’s one of the reasons we can really be present in prayer where the world is in pain. Paul already likened the groaning in creation to birth pains. When we groan with the Spirit in prayer with creation, those prayers are used by the Father to birth new dreams and visions, new vocations and strategies to bring hope to specific places of brokenness in our world.

And so, we pray: Spirit of the living God, thank you for making your home in me. Here I am so that you can pray through me. Thank you, Father that we can trust you to take these prayers and do even more than what we asked for or even imagined. In Jesus' name. Amen