I don’t remember a time when I didn’t “know” how to pray.  As a little girl, I would fold my hands, close my eyes, bow my head, and present my request for a baby sister to God.  As I grew older and went to Christian school and church, I learned the right way to structure a prayer and how to pray eloquently and ask for the right things.  So when I heard that the women’s retreat this year would be about prayer, I went in assuming that at best I’d be in for a refresher on something I already knew.

Turns out, I may be pretty good at structuring a prayer, and asking for spiritual-sounding things, but this weekend God reminded me that I’ve also been pretty good at missing the point of prayer.

Our speakers’ first talk centered on the idea that when we pray, we come to God utterly dependent on Him.  I am not going to impress him with beautiful words or pious requests – I pray because I can’t meet my own needs!  When Jesus teaches His disciples the Lord’s Prayer in Luke, he follows it up with a story about a man who shamelessly begs for bread from his neighbor because he has no food in his house to feed an unexpected guest.  This story is horrifying to me, but this is truly my perpetual state before God – completely unable to meet my own needs, but praying to a God who delights to hear my prayers and meet my needs! If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Later in the day, our speakers taught more about the Holy Spirit and His role in our lives, specifically our prayer lives.  When I read the verse above, it almost feels like a disappointment to see that God will give us the Holy Spirit (can’t he just give me what I ask for?).  But in Romans 8, we see that the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.  So when I pray, even when I don’t know what to pray, the Holy Spirit is translating my prayer to ask God for what I actually need.  And since He knows perfectly what I need, I can trust that He will be at work even when I can’t imagine what I need. I can go to Him with my struggles even if I can’t imagine a solution for them.

I walked away from this weekend encouraged to pray not only when I think I already know what I need.  I can come to God and just tell Him how I’m feeling weak, or anxious, or happy, and trust Him to meet my needs in that situation.  He won’t get tired of hearing how I’m feeling, and He knows what I need even when I don’t ask for it correctly. And when I’m struggling, He may not provide the “delivering grace” of changing my situation, but He will certainly provide the “sustaining grace” to bring me through it.  

~ Alyson Noell