Lately I've seen a higher number of urgent requests for prayers, both who I know and in social media: a coworker with a close friend dying, a mom with cancer, a grandparent in decline, a newborn who's not going to live. Then there were prayers of blessings I wanted to send out, healthy babies being born and celebrated. Perhaps there are always this many prayer requests in my newsfeed but I don't notice them. But I noticed them this time and I felt a little hopeless. I thought about these people and I thought about prayer the entire way home on Tuesday. I left the radio off and hoped my prayers while driving counted. I thought about the fact that a life in ministry means receiving a lot more urgent prayer requests. I thought about praying for people through social media and what does that mean?
My upbringing taught me about the power of prayer. Prayer heals all manner of sickness, physical, emotional, relational. I believe that. I believe that God hears our prayers directly from our hearts and it doesn't really matter how we say or think them in the English language. But when you're feeling weighed down it's heartening to read in your lectionary passage:
...the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit...
Romans 8: 26-27
"Intercedes with sighs too deep for words...who searches the heart..."Such beautiful words about God's relationship with us. God does not rely upon words as a method of communication. Sometimes it takes a beautiful, truthful passage like this that transforms my "understanding" that God hears our prayers (even in the car) back into faith.
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