In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us. For example, when we don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words. All of our thoughts are known to God. He can understand what is in the mind of the Spirit, as the Spirit prays for God’s people. We know that God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose, and he has always known who his chosen ones would be. He had decided to let them become like his own Son, so that his Son would be the first of many children. God then accepted the people he had already decided to choose, and he has shared his glory with them.
Romans 8:26-30. Contemporary English Version. The Holy Bible (New York, NY: American Bible Society 1995) p. 1373.
So often, I feel like I am praying in the dark. So often, I feel like I am praying for the wrong thing, and though I may pray for thy will, I don’t know that I always truly intend thy will to be done. It is comforting to know that the Spirit is here to make sure it’s prayed right. And those times when I just know I need to pray for X, something general or someone who I can’t get off my mind? Ah, there’s the Spirit again, not needing my stumbling words, not needing my struggling ideas, just needing me to make the time to pray, just needing me to make the time to come to God. How often I have not known how to pray, and have fallen back on the rosary as my familiar way of communicating my gut to God! This passage gives me comfort in that practice, and helps me to see that perhaps it is not a failing after all.
