The Holy Spirit

The Spirit and Prayer

The Holy Spirit is God's gift to us in prayer. When we are weak and do not even know what to ask, the Spirit Himself helps our weakness and makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. He assures us we are God's children so that we cry Abba, Father, and He carries our poor prayers to the throne according to the will of God.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.Romans 8:26 (KJV)

Help in our weakness

Every honest Christian knows the experience Paul describes: Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought. There are times we come to pray and do not know what to say, times of grief or confusion when words fail, times we cannot even tell what would be good to ask. Prayer, far from being easy, is often where we feel our weakness most. Into that very weakness the Spirit comes, not to shame us for it, but to help.

This is one of the tenderest truths in Scripture. God does not stand back and wait for us to pray well before He listens. His own Spirit, dwelling within us, stoops to help us pray at all. The weakest and most stumbling prayer of a believer is not carried to heaven alone; it is carried by the Spirit of God.

Groanings that cannot be uttered

Paul goes on: the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Deeper than our words, deeper even than our understanding, the Spirit voices before God the longings we cannot express. And, Paul adds, He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So there is never a mismatch between what the Spirit prays in us and what God wills. Our prayers may be clumsy; the Spirit's intercession within them is perfectly aligned with the Father's heart.

This means no true prayer is wasted, even the ones that come out as sighs and tears. The Spirit gathers up our groaning and presents it to God in perfect accord with His will. We pray better than we know, because Another is praying in us and for us.

The Spirit who cries Abba

The Spirit not only helps us pray; He tells us who we are as we pray. Paul says we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, and that the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. Abba is the intimate word of a child to a beloved father. The Spirit puts that word in our mouths and that assurance in our hearts, so that we come to God not as strangers begging at the gate but as sons and daughters welcomed home.

This changes prayer entirely. We are not trying to gain God's attention or earn His favor. We are children speaking to a Father who loves us, and the Spirit within us keeps whispering that it is really so. Even our desire to pray is His gift, evidence that we belong to God.

The Spirit who gives us the words

When we do have words to pray, they too are often the Spirit's gift. Paul tells the Galatians that God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. The very cry of a child to its Father is put in our mouths by the Spirit. So even our best prayers are not simply ours; they are the Spirit praying in us and through us, teaching us to speak to God as a beloved child speaks to a trusted Father.

This should banish the fear that we are not good enough at prayer for God to hear. The Spirit is at both ends of every true prayer: prompting it within us and presenting it before the Father according to His will. Our part is simply to come, to open the heart, and to let the Spirit carry what we can and cannot say.

Praying in the Spirit as a way of life

Prayer in the Spirit is not reserved for rare, intense moments. Paul urges believers to be praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, a steady leaning on God that runs through the whole of life. It is the quiet turning of the heart to the Father a hundred times a day, in gratitude, in need, in worship, made possible because the Spirit dwells within and keeps the line open.

So we are never really praying alone. Whether in a set time of prayer or a whispered word in the middle of work, the Spirit is present, helping, interceding, assuring. The weakest believer who leans on the Spirit prays with more power than the strongest who leans on themselves, for it is the Spirit, and not our eloquence, that carries prayer home.

When we do not feel like praying

There are seasons when prayer feels dry, when God seems distant and the heart is cold, and we can hardly bring ourselves to pray at all. These are exactly the times to remember that the Spirit helpeth our infirmities. He does not wait for us to feel spiritual before He works; He meets us in the dryness and the reluctance, stirring the faintest desire to seek God and turning it into prayer. The very fact that we still want to pray, even a little, is evidence that the Spirit has not left us.

So a dry season is not a signal to give up but an invitation to lean harder on the Spirit. Come with empty hands, say the little you can, and trust the Spirit to carry it. Often it is in the times we feel least able to pray that the Spirit is doing His deepest work, drawing us to depend not on our own warmth but on His faithful help. The prayer that costs us most when we feel least is precious to God.

And what a comfort it is that the Spirit prays even when we cannot. On the days we are too weary, too grieved, or too distracted to form the words, He is still interceding within us according to the will of God. Prayer, then, is never finally about our performance but about His faithful help. We come as children to a Father, carried by the Spirit and welcomed for the sake of the Son, and no honest cry of the heart is ever lost.

So let no one stay away from prayer because they feel they are poor at it. The Spirit was given for exactly this, to help our weakness and to pray in us and for us. The weakest, most stumbling prayer, offered in the name of Jesus, is caught up by the Spirit and laid before the Father in perfect accord with His will. To pray at all, however faintly, is already to have the Spirit at work within you.

Through the Spirit, in the name of the Son

All of this reaches the Father through the Son. It is because Jesus has died, risen, and opened the way that we have access by one Spirit unto the Father. The Spirit does not lead us to pray to Himself, nor apart from Christ, but carries us in Christ's name into the presence of the Father. Christian prayer is trinitarian from beginning to end: to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

So take heart if you find prayer hard. Your weakness is not a barrier to the Spirit; it is the very place He works. Come as a child. Say what you can, even if it is only a groan, and trust that the Spirit of God is turning it into perfect prayer and laying it before your Father, for the sake of Jesus.

Related: Being filled with the Spirit · The witness and seal of the Spirit · The work of the Holy Spirit · The Holy Spirit