“ And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.” Rom. 8:26. NLT. 

Footsteps #346. Prayer stands at the very heart of our daily Christian experience, yet our needs go way beyond the power of speech to express them. Prayer is the life of the soul, it is the key in the hand of faith to unlock heaven’s storehouse, it is the opening of the heart to God as a friend. Yet how ignorant we are when we come before God’s throne. In short, “we do not know what we ought to pray for”(NASB). 

For that reason, God has sent the Holy Spirit. The Spirit not only encourages us while we await the consummation of redemption (v23), but He helps us in prayer because of our weakness and ignorance. God leaves no stone unturned in seeking to empower those who have accepted Him by faith and have become part of His great family. 

J.B. Phillips translates the passage as “his Spirit within us is actually praying for us in those agonising longings which cannot find words”. When we lack the words to express our deepest needs, when we make sounds that are no better than inarticulate noise, the Spirit takes those sounds and makes them into effective intercession. It would seem that even meaningful prayer is the Spirit working in spite of our manifold weaknesses. 

V27 tells us that “the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers^[a] in harmony with God’s own will.” Thus, it is evident that Prayer is a three-way thing. But there is a fourth also. Christ, who “is at the right hand of God…interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). When we pray, the Bible tells us that we are in contact with the entire Trinity. Prayer is as awesome as it is important!  

Romans 8 helps us to see the Spirit’s role in prayer clearer than in any other portion of the Bible. The apostle makes three statements about the Spirit’s prayer ministry. First, because of our weak, half-saved condition, “the Spirit helps us” (v26). Second, the Spirit intercedes for us (v26) because of our ignorance of what to pray for. Third, the Spirit’s intercession is according to God’s will (v27). 

Two special points: Firstly, the spirit is said to “groan” with us (v26), and that Joins the “groan” of creation (v22) and the church (v23). The Holy Spirit identifies with the pain of the world and the church, and like true Christians, He longs for the restitution of all things. Thus, we and the Spirit groan together. 

The second point of special interest in v27 declares that the Spirit intercedes for us “according to the will of God”. Thus the Spirit and Christ, who three times in Gethsemane prayed “Not My will but Thine be done”, were in harmony that they should always pray according to the divine will. That pattern is also of special importance for the prayers of God’s church. After all, true Christians want to be in God’s will.