After Ron suddenly lost his eyesight, he could see some things but it was like looking through mud. But blindness is strange. He has blurry vision of things in the distance, such as trees or cars. If you came up to him to shake his hand, however, he can't see your hand, and unless you introduce yourself he won't know who you are.
He also needed help to learn how to do ordinary tasks. A mobility trainer taught him how to walk on sidewalks, using his cane to feel for obstacles and bumps in the cement. He learned how to cross streets and listen for the sounds of traffic. Since then he has been able to walk by himself, which he does everyday for a mile or more.
Another specialist for the blind came to our home and showed Ron how to do basic tasks that we sighted people automatically do. He learned how to pour water in a cup without it spilling over, prepare food, and organize his clothes in the closet. She even showed him how to identify his food on his plate. She taught him, both by telling him and by putting her hand over his to guide it to the right place.
I have discovered so many parallels between prayer and blindness. As we face the events of each new day, we can’t see the way in front of us or what’s around the corner. We need the Holy Spirit to help us navigate the obstacles and bumps of life. We need His spiritual eyesight because we all have muddy vision. We need the Spirit to teach us the basic things of prayer and His guiding hand to show us the way in the darkness.
We have this assurance. “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. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27 esv)
We will closely examine those verses in order to see how the Holy Spirit guides us in prayer. I hope that it will relieve you of some of the inadequate feelings you might have about your prayer-life as you see the Spirit’s role, all that He does for you to enable you to pray, and as you realize His constant presence with you.
In what ways does the Spirit help us?
First, the all-powerful Spirit of God helps us pray in our weakness. In Greek the word “weakness” means both suffering and weakness. This verse states that we are weak; it doesn’t say “if we are weak” or “when we are weak.”
I have come to realize that I am powerless to pray in my own strength. In my weakness the Spirit comes along side me, takes hold, and assists me in prayer.
Jesus also promised, “‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever’” (John 14: 16 esv). The word “helps” means “‘to take hold of anything with another,’ ‘to take part in his burden or work,’ and thus to give help.” (Hodge, Romans, 254.)
“Have you noticed that nobody prays unless he feels a sense of dependence?” said Ray Stedman. “People that feel independent, and able to run their own lives, never pray. It is only when we come to the place where we realize we can’t handle everything that we begin to pray, and out of that sense of dependence comes the instinctive cry of the heart expressed in prayer.” (Ray C. Stedman, “Prayer, Providence, Praise,” Sept. 9, 1962, No: 15, Catalog No: 19)
Once I accept my weakness and dependence on the Holy Spirit, I am better able to relinquish my concerns to Him. But it’s always a process for me, and I don’t do it easily.
God is sovereign and answers prayer in line with His will and purposes not mine. This is difficult to accept especially in certain heartaches that I feel need His immediate intervention.
I have found that the more I ask the Spirit of God to reveal His desires and will, the more I am able to let go of my own. I can see how God is answering and working because I am not so locked into what I want.
Prayer is hard, however, when we are facing something frightening such as when my husband Ron had melanoma skin cancer surgery. We were afraid that it had spread throughout his body. My faith was weak and my prayers were weak. We are thankful that the surgeon was able to get all the cancer, and Ron didn’t need more treatment.
The Spirit helped me pray even though my faith wavered between fear and trust. I felt distressed and helpless when I prayed, but my roller coaster faith didn’t prevent God from answering in a positive way.
You can be assured that “if the problems of prayer have become so dark and heavy to you that the words of prayer freeze on your lips,” wrote O Hallesby, “then pray in your distress for the Spirit of prayer. He will solve the deepest mysteries of prayer by revealing to you that, the more helpless you are, the better you are fitted to pray, and the more answers to prayer you will experience.” (O Hallesby, Prayer, 171.)
Because God is Sovereign he already knew the outcome of Ron’s surgery, so why bother asking God for what we desire? And what if the answer had been “no” as it was when Ron went blind? Many prayed with us that he would regain his eyesight.
So why pray? Because we need to communicate with God, we need to experience His presence and see Him at work in our lives no matter what the answer might be. One way to experience this is through our conversations with the Lord.
The Spirit of God gladly helps me pray and fills me with His comfort when I am afraid. The more I surrender myself to Him and come before Him in humble dependence the more I realize the Holy Spirit’s presence and assistance to see me through those hard trials.
O Hallesby said, “He will help you in your weakness and show you in what ways you misunderstand prayer, and will make it simple and easy for you to pray.” (O Hallesby, Prayer, 170.)
I also desire to pray effectively, but sometimes I am depressed, and all sense of hope and trust has failed me. I don’t know how to pray with enough faith to move the heart of God. How can He hear me when I feel so spiritually dead? If God answered prayer based on my poor faith and flat feelings, His answer would be “No.”
I find great assurance in what Charles Spurgeon wrote, “The Holy Spirit also divinely operates in the strengthening of the faith of believers. That faith is at first of his creating, and afterwards it is of his sustaining and increasing: . . . have you not often felt your faith rise in proportion to your trials? . . . You have felt as sure about the promise as you felt about the trial. The affliction was, as it were, in your very bones, but the promise was also in your very heart. . . .” (Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Holy Spirit's Intercession,” No. 1532, April 11th, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.)
When we saturate ourselves in Scripture and look to God to increase our faith the Spirit strengthens our confidence in God and reassures us of His presence. “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17 esv).
“Blessed be the Divine Spirit then, that since faith is essential to prevailing prayer, he helps us in supplication by increasing our faith.” (Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Holy Spirit's Intercession,” No. 1532, April 11th, 1880, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.)
Furthermore, we have this assurance that from the moment of our salvation, the Holy Spirit indwells us (John 14:17). “The New Testament clearly teaches that all believers are permanently indwelt. . . . It means that whether or not we feel it, God the Holy Spirit lives within our beings constantly,” said Charles Ryrie (Basic Theology, 412-13.)
Our eternal security as believers and the “permanent indwelling of the Spirit are inseparable doctrines. . . To be sure, sin affects the effectiveness of the Spirit in the believer’s life, but it does not remove His presence from believers.” (Ryrie, Basic Theology, 410.)
The Spirit of God indwells us, intercedes for us, and works in and around us. Realizing that the Spirit of God indwells us, can transform our prayer-life.
The Holy Spirit is our Helper and sure foundation in prayer. The indwelling Spirit is our very assurance in prayer. We can be certain that He is within us helping in our weakness and guiding us as we pray.
The Spirit of “God himself is in us, having taken up residence in the believer to perform all that is required, and each one of us has a power within which is quite sufficient to meet every need that we have: God is that power. He is the originator and the performer of it all. Nevertheless, he always involves us in conscious cooperation,” said Ray Stedman. (Ray C. Stedman, “Prayer, Providence, Praise,” Sept. 9, 1962, No: 15, Catalog No: 19)
Therefore, we “pray in the Holy Spirit,” meaning under His influence and by his assistance. The indwelling Spirit also helps us in our weakness by teaching us how and what to pray (Jude 20b, Eph. 6:18).
