Now What?
for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; Romans 8:26
How To Pray – Is this really the problem? Does Paul mean to say that we don’t know how to pray? It doesn’t seem so. Prayer is ultimately about communion with God. It is about all of the emotional, volitional, cognitive and embodied elements that bridge the gap between who I am and who God is. I don’t think I really have any serious concerns about how I pray. I know that the Hebrew words cover the range from growling to weeping, from shouting to dancing and from pleading to praising. The real problem is that I don’t know what to pray. I don’t really know what God is doing in the circumstances of my life, so I don’t really know what to say that will align my heart with His purposes. I am stuck with the finite version of the eternal plans of God. More often than not, I am at a loss for true perspective.
Someone is sick. What should I pray? Should I pray for healing? What if that is not what God is doing with these circumstances? Someone lost a job. Do I pray for another, or is God teaching something else? At every hand I am confronted with confusion. How can I pray rightly if I do not know the mind of God first? Do I just toss up words and add the “if it is Your will” catch-all at the end? Paul seems to say something else.
First, the Greek phrase does not include the word pos (how). Therefore, any translation that adds this thought doesn’t seem to be correct. There is also no justification for adding the “for” in a translation such as “what to pray for.” Paul literally says, “because what we may pray as we ought, we do not know.” Leon Morris comments: “But we cannot hide behind a plea of ignorance and give up on prayer. Prayer is part of the Christian life. . . We must pray aright, and since we cannot do that, the Spirit comes to our aid.” Paul’s comment is not an excuse for incapacity. It is a description of our finitude. We don’t know what to pray because in our brokenness in a broken world we cannot know what to pray. Unless God shows up in our prayers, we are simply guessing.
The Greek verb here is proseuchomai, the standard New Testament word for praying. It is a general category word, covering all the elements of prayer. Paul isn’t saying that we lack insight when it comes to intercession or supplication. He is saying that the human condition leaves us deficient in all aspects of prayer. If you have ever struggled in conversation with God, you know that Paul speaks the truth. Prayer is very difficult. Without the Spirit, there is always an awareness of inadequacy in the experience.
A lot of us recognize this problem, but now what? Perhaps it helps to recognize that the Hebrew approach to prayer almost always focuses on praise and blessing for God. In fact, most prayers in the Siddur (the Hebrew prayer book) are filled with blessing and praising God’s name, His works and His faithfulness. There seems to be a lot less concern about human needs and supplications. What comes to the forefront is the magnificence and majesty of God. Maybe these prayers don’t struggle so much with the issue of incapacity because they start by acknowledging the impossibly wide gap. Furthermore, when the prayers of the Siddur do bring needs before the King of the Universe, the attitude is always focused on the transformation of the supplicant’s heart in order to be content with the sovereign will of the King. In other words, the prayer is not so much about what we want God to do as it is about becoming pliable and accepting His purposes. Prayer is real petition, but it focuses on the degree of my contentment. God’s sovereignty always trumps my desires and I need to absorb that.
Finally, it might be helpful to see that prayer is a duty, not simply a desire. We are commanded to pray. That means we must pray in spite of our feelings about the situation. How easy it is to shed the discipline of prayer when we are discouraged or downtrodden. But prayer is not emotionally based. Prayer is the requirement to talk to Him about it. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner,” is God’s answer to our hesitancy. We need to make prayer a discipline of life. Once again, this is demonstrated in the Siddur which begins prayer at the very moment we wake and has prescribed prayers for nearly every activity in the day. Maybe the rabbis knew how quickly we lose sight of God in the hustle and bustle of life, so they built into the training process the constant reminders of Creator conversation. Paul concurs with his exhortation, “Pray without ceasing.”
In personal confession, I recognize that I do not know what to pray. That often leads me to not pray, since I can see no way out of the circumstances I face. I don’t know what to do, so I don’t know what to ask. Not knowing what to ask, I ask nothing at all. But this is a terrible and debilitating mistake and an awful display of arrogance. Who am I to know? The solution to the problem is not asking God to assist me with my solutions. I don’t have a solution. Therefore, I am left with pouring out my heart-felt struggle without an answer. That opens the door for the Spirit. All I have really done is come to the Father with these words on my lips: “I do not know what to pray, Father, but I know who You are. Let my heart be molded to Your purposes. That is enough for me.”
This isn’t the end of the story, but it is a beginning.
Topical Index: prayer, proseuchomai, Siddur, contentment, Romans 8:26
For me, the words in prayer are just preparation.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
For me, it is very helpful to think in terms of the “here and now.”
And it is not about thinking, it is about doing: “connecting to God.”
It is about becoming conscious of what is, accepting what is.
It is about being grateful for what is, because whatever it is, it is God’s will.
His gift to us.
I believe that I understand the Hebrew perspective for prayer, and I am thankful for it. However, it becomes somewhat difficult when you are interceding for a loved one, perhaps a spouse, a parent, or a child, that their salvation become a reality. I understand that God is “not willing that any should perish,” and that it is the loved one whose stubbornness and unwillingness to give up their life for the life of Christ is preventing the salvation, yet it seems to me that in this situation, all I can pray is that their hearts be softened and their ears be opened to the voice of God. Any further suggestions?
Thanks for this Word Skip it sure takes alot of weight off our shoulders knowing we don’t have to have the solution, but we can communicate with the Living God to recieve revelation and depend on the Holy Spirit to help in time of need. I always thought I had to have an answer when a friend would come to me with a problem, and a lot of times I have made things worse by answering off the top of my head rather than seeking an answer from the Spirit of the Living God.
Your fellow traveler on the Way,
Jeffrey Curtis
No man comes to Me unless the Father draws (in Greek – drags) him. If this is true, then you are praying correctly. You can’t save anyone, but you can pray that the God of grace will do everything necessary to bring that person to the truth. And everything necessary usually means that you have to be willing to be sacrificed to make it happen. Jesus did.
Skip
So very, very true!
I like this quote from C.S. Lewis on prayer: “The very question, ‘Does prayer work?’ puts us in the wrong frame of mind from the outset. “‘Work’: as if it were magic, or a machine – something that functions automatically. Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons and the utterly concrete Person. Prayer, in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and enjoyment of God its bread and wine. In it God shows Himself to us. That He answers prayer is a corollary – not necessarily the most important one – from the revelation. What He does is learned from what He is.”
(“The Efficacy of Prayer” by C.S. Lewis)
I like C. S. Lewis a lot too.
Mere Christianity is one of my favorite books.
And I love his writing style.
Thanks David. It is useful to know that there are more than two dozen words for prayer in Hebrew. Our paucity of prayer language in English only demonstrates how little we understand the idea. Some time ago Today’s Word looked at all these Hebrew examples. It was quite revealing. Prayer stretches across a very wide area and once we see just how wide that area is, prayer becomes breathing.
I made a terrible goof. When I was reviewing comments, I accidentally deleted the last one attached to this thread. I don’t even remember who sent it. So, if you’re reading this and you don’t see something that you added to this Today’s Word, I apologize. Would you be so kind as to add it again. I promise to keep my fingers off the DELETE key.
Skip
Skip,
I am a Messianic believer. I attend a local Messianic temple on Saturdays. I have been so blessed through the liturgy; we use the Siddur. I love the outward proclamation we offer up in prayer. Our temple does the service in both Hebrew and English. I feel my walked has been enriched through praising Him and proclaiming His mighty deeds.
I had to attend temple as a child and never liked it. I do not speak or read Hebrew so I always felt left out. It always seemed long and empty. In college I joined Hillel, but left because of the same reason. I gave my life to Yeshua in 1981 and now liturgy is rich and I pray with understanding.
Thanks for your words,
Wendy