Have you ever tried to pray and just can’t do it? Have you sat down to pray, so overwhelmed with your current storm you cannot form the words or don’t even know what to ask for? You are in a good place, really, you are in a perfect place when you experience that lack of words. When you don’t have the words, God does. He knows BEST what you need and you need only to come to Him and present your heart, He will do the rest.

This blog is one in a journey of a Getting to Know God series. The names and attributes of God are adapted from a guide on the Navigators website called 30 Days of Praying the Names and Attributes of God. Today’s blog corresponds with Day 28 – God is our Intercessor.

Our Navigators’ Guide says this: “God is our Intercessor. Knowing our temptations, God the Son intercedes for us. He opens the doors for us to boldly ask God the Father for mercy. Thus, God is both the initiation and conclusion of true prayer.”

Our verses for the day are:

Hebrews 4:14-16 (ESV)

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

I really appreciate the message in these two seemingly simple verses. I think it is hard for us, in our human nature, to understand how God can understand us. We can put a block up between us and God when we imagine Him as a distant being sitting on a throne and beyond the reach of any worldly trouble. What this passage reminds us of is the FACT that our God and King and Savior HAS WALKED through our world. He has had His heart broken by friends, He has lost loved ones to death and He has experienced temptations beyond what we could ever imagine.

Why does any of that matter? It matters because Jesus is our Intercessor. He is the one who goes to God on our behalf. He knows the pain we experience in this dark world because He too has experienced it. We don’t have a detached god that sits in judgment over us on a throne that has no personal experience. Rather we have a God that knows exactly what it feels like to walk through this fallen, dark world. This fact means Jesus knows best what we experience on a daily basis and what we need from God to help us continue our walks toward Him.

When we don’t have the words, the knowledge or even the strength to pray, Jesus Himself goes to God and intercedes on on our behalf. I have felt the interceding Spirit of God in prayer and I pray you have too. Be encouraged that on your darkest days when all you can pray or cry is “Jesus, help me” that is enough. Be assured He hears you and will fill in the words and requests for you as He lays your needs at the foot of The King.

For additional reassurance of this fact, check out this verse:

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

So, again, on those days when you just don’t have the words, just bring yourself to a quiet place to enter into the Presence of God. Then stand on the knowledge that the Holy Spirit knows what you need and is interceding for you. When you can only cry and cannot even utter an understandable word, you are being prayed for by the Holy Spirit. Who could be better to understand what you need in prayer than the Mighty God who created you?

I hope that comforts your heart like it comforts mine. What an incredible blessing to have a God that truly, deeply and intimately cares for us.

Blessings and love,
Pamela