“Oh, God, you know what I mean!”
Some of the most awkward moments we can experience occur when we are at a loss of words. We’re expected to say something, but we simply don’t have anything to say. We can’t find the right words. We’re speechless—or, under pressure, we force something out and end up saying something stupid, silly or completely irrelevant to the conversation or occasion.
But perhaps one of the most trying situations in which this speechlessness can occur is not in a conversation or in a discussion or before an audience or congregation. It is when we are before the Lord in prayer. It might happen when we’re full of thanksgiving and praise, and our words just don’t do justice to what we want to express. But perhaps more often it’s when we’re deeply distressed, heart-broken, confused, or profoundly concerned for others in a dire situation – when we’re hopeless and feel helpless, perhaps suffered a great loss. At that point we can find ourselves speechless. Maybe you can recall moments like that before the Lord in prayer.
I can recall an incident from many years ago when I was serving as a university campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The student groups I served had weekly prayer meetings. It was not very structured. But each one attending could pray about something—a word of thanksgiving, a word of praise, a request of a personal concern, or for others, or for a national or world event or situation. And then two or three would follow up on that prayer and add to it, saying what came to mind along the same lines as the first prayer offered. This is sometimes called conversational prayer. The group stays on topic for a while before it moves on to another.
A relatively new follower of Jesus was attending one of these prayer meetings that I was leading. He began to pray in earnest about something he was obviously concerned about. All of us were intently listening. But he was having a lot of trouble praying what he wanted to pray…he’d say a few words, “Dear God I just want to pray that, that…” and then stumble, mumble, and try to start over: “Jesus, I pray that…that…that, well, I don’t know…” and then stop, almost giving up, trying again to find the right words. He was having such a struggle that all of us in that prayer group felt agonized with him. And I was wishing I could somehow help him get his words out.
I would not be surprised if we all have times like these: we simply don’t know what to pray or how to pray.
In fact, for me, this too, happens in prayer. And I have to say that the situation has not gotten better over time—rather it seems to happen more often now than in years before. I was hoping for the opposite! Prayer should get easier, shouldn’t it?
But over those years I have come to appreciate more and more two passages of Scripture that I thought in these troubling times or for any times, might be encouraging to us all. They tell us something very important about prayer. Not about how to pray, but about who we’re praying to. Let me quote them to you:
Speaking of the incarnate, resurrected and ascended Jesus, the author of Hebrews reminds us:
“The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:23-26).
The Son “lives to make intercessions” for us!
Then the apostle Paul in Romans 8, verse 26 speaks to us about the Holy Spirit. He tells us:
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).
Our not having words to pray does not stop the Holy Spirit from interceding for us, perhaps as we simply join in the speechless groanings of the Holy Spirit, like many of the Psalms seem to exhibit.
These verses remind us that when we pray we never pray alone. We’re not trying to launch our prayers from an earthly platform up to a distant God, hard to reach, hard of hearing, even if it seems our prayers go up, hit the ceiling and bounce back to us. That’s because we not only pray to God in the name of the Son, we are actually praying along with the Son who is interceding for us.
Our Lord Jesus who bodily ascended into heaven is not on vacation. He is not unemployed waiting for a signal from the Father to return to bring to completion his ministry after waiting around for who knows how long. He is our eternal mediator, our resurrected and ascended intercessor who lives to make intercessions for us, as one of us, as our worship leader, and our great High Priest who ushers us into the very presence of the Living God, often in times of prayer. That’s the grace of prayer to our gracious Triune God.
The ascended Son, although absent in body, is present to us by the continuing ministry of the Holy Spirit, who is also involved in the ministry of intercession. The Son and the Holy Spirit are both doing something as we pray—interceding for us. In fact, then, the whole Triune God is living and acting in relationship to us.
C.S. Lewis memorably speaks of the practicality of our belief in the Trinity in just this way. Whenever we take time to pray to the God revealed in Jesus Christ, the whole Trinity is involved in a united but three-fold way.
- First, we are praying with Jesus Christ, who is already interceding for us long before we say a word. As one of us, still sharing our human nature, he hears us and takes our prayers, our human prayers, and joins them to his and delivers them to the Father, cleaned up, sanctified, made perfect. He listens to us and knows what we ought to pray.
- Second, through the Son we are praying to the Father, who is over us, who along with the Son oversees all things, who allows nothing to take place that cannot be redeemed through the Son. The Son joins our prayers with his intercessions and shares them with God the Father
- And third, it is the Holy Spirit who moves us to pray to the Father through the Son. In our simple prayers the Holy Spirit is ministering in us. The Holy Spirit can guide us in our prayers, free us and strengthen us to pray, sometimes giving us the words, sometimes praying for us in ways that are beyond words. The Spirit, then, also intercedes for us, especially as we recognize our weakness and run out of words, when we don’t know what to pray. The Spirit always knows what to pray and how to pray for us and in us—through the Son and to the Father.
So we pray to the Father who is over us, through the Son who is with us and by the Holy Spirit who is in us. Prayer is a blessed communion with the whole gracious Triune God—we never pray alone.
Let me finish the story about that new believer struggling to pray at that campus fellowship prayer meeting. After wrestling to put into words his heartfelt prayer, and all of us agonizing with him, he finally, in a way, gave up and simply blurted out in exasperation: “Oh, God, you know what I mean!” And we all, with great relief and joy, spontaneously joined him in a quiet reverent chuckle of recognition: “Yes, Lord Jesus, you do know what he means.” Thank God, you know what we mean!
So we can be encouraged even today or any day, when we seem at a loss for words, when we don’t know what to pray—we never pray alone. We’re always joining our Lord Jesus Christ in his continuing prayers, in his ongoing intercessions for us. Thanks be to our gracious Triune God who continues to lead and intercede for us in our prayers and all our worship.
Gary Deddo, GCS News, Fall 2024