When the Spirit Steps In

The Promise of Romans 8:26-27

By P. Douglas Small

I was about five years of age when my grandmother took my sister and me by the hand and parked us in her bedroom. She sat me on a little cot next to the bathroom door. I can still hear the click of the lock as she closed the door. What emerged from behind that door was the captivating sound of prayer. She had locked herself in with God.

I have no idea how long she prayed. I have no idea what precipitated her need to stop and pray. I only remember the passion. Words. Then sounds. Tears. Fervor. Groans. Moans. Indescribable and indistinct speech. Prayer—but like nothing I can recall before that time.

I knew in that moment a presence had filled that little frame house. There was more than me, my sister, and my grandmother in that place—God had come!

When she emerged, she resolutely held her head high. It was as if she had been in another world. Her cheeks were stained with tears. Her lips quivered. She was in the Spirit. The experience marked me. It is as fresh as yesterday.

I had encountered, through the prayer life of my grandmother, “The Holy.”

A New Normal

“A prayerless life is one of practical atheism,” wrote Gordon Fee. That being true, much of American Christianity is functionally atheistic. And if serious praying is scarce, then praying in the Spirit is on the endangered species list.

In contrast, prayer “without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17, kjv), unbroken communion with God, should be as normal to the Spirit-filled believer as breathing.

Before Jesus left the earth, He promised to ask the Father for the Holy Spirit to descend on the Church. (See John 14:16–17.) He went to a prayer meeting in heaven and sent His disciples to a prayer meeting on earth. This is the model—simultaneous, synchronized prayer, linking heaven and earth.

With the descent of the Spirit, believers could now pray in a manner not possible before Christ’s ascension and enthronement. Out of His redemptive work at Calvary, believers can pray with a new heavenly status. As Jesus prayed in heaven, the disciples prayed in the Upper Room. Parallel prayer, heaven and earth in agreement, connected by the Spirit: this is the prototype of normal Church life.

Partnering with the Spirit

In the New Testament, a Spirit-led partnership emerges. “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:32):

• Jesus entrusted a praying church into the hands of the Spirit, and the Spirit directed and empowered witnesses (Acts 1:8, 15:8).
• Their speech and spiritual insights came by the Spirit (Acts 2:4, 17).
• Apostolic commission arose at the Spirit’s direction (Acts 13:1–3). He permitted, forbade, and compelled (Acts 16:6–7).
• Jesus placed priority on the Spirit’s immediate presence with the disciples even over His own, “It is expedient for you that I go away” (John 16:7, kjv, italics added). In Jesus’ assumption of the role of heavenly High Priest and Intercessor, the Comforter came, and the divine heaven-earth dialectic was put into place.
• The disciples were to do nothing without the Spirit. He came to complete Christ’s work and glorify Jesus. He is the “in us” intermediary, providing a direct link to the Father, through Christ, now the Head of the Church. “[The Spirit] will receive what he will make known to you” (John 16:14). The idea is forceful—the Spirit will aggressively accept what is available from Jesus in heaven and bring word to the disciples on the earth.

The original Greek here means up and declare. The Spirit tells, from all the way up, what is processed in the throne of heaven. He gives the word from the top! Jesus said that the Spirit whispers “only what he hears,” heaven’s secrets, telling things “yet to come” (John 16:13).

The Holy Spirit’s breath is our animating life (John 6:63). Yet we lack a view of the Spirit’s role that’s dynamic, and we fail to understand that all His work dances around prayer—everything!

Jesus was a child “through the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:18). He was baptized, led, and even driven by the Spirit (Matt. 4:1; Mark 1:12). What He knew, He knew by the Spirit (Mark 2:8). In prayer, the Spirit anointed and empowered Him (Luke 4:14, 17–19). And, by the Spirit of God, Jesus drove out demons (Matt. 12:28).

If Christ prayerfully depended on the Spirit, how much more should we? He “offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears” (Heb. 5:7). We know little of such praying.

In the Upper Room, as the disciples prayed, they were “filled with the Holy Spirit.” They spoke “as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4, kjv). With this divine partnership, the synchronization—essential to mission—was now operative. As the Holy Spirit interceded from the earth (through the Church), He joined Jesus, who was interceding in heaven.

A new paradigm emerged—a holy collaboration with the Father, in Christ, by the indwelling and enabling Spirit. Suddenly the surrendered, unruly tongues of the disciples gave voice to the Spirit, heralding the news that the risen Christ sat enthroned in heaven, rightful heir to King David’s throne. A new era had begun.

Praying with the Spirit

Paul describes this collaboration with the Spirit in Romans 8:26–27 (NASB):

The Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Today’s world requires deep prayer that’s possible only by our joining the Spirit’s intercession—at times with “inarticulate groans.” In such prayer-speech, the Spirit can “utter mysteries” to God on our behalf, expressing the inexpressible (1 Cor. 14:2, 14–16, 18). Searching our hearts, He speaks to the Father as our representative, our attorney-advocate.

By such inspired prayer, the Spirit “helps” us. In the Greek, the literal meaning is that He takes hold of us at our side, jointly sharing and assisting in our praying. His help corresponds exactly to the need.

The context also sheds light on what “we should pray for.” It carries the idea of an exchange. The Spirit interacts with heaven on my behalf. At my side and knowing my heart, He takes my wish (my flawed prescription for a problem) and substitutes God’s will. Simultaneously, in the switch, He strengthens my faith.

It is precisely when we know neither how nor what to pray that the Spirit prays effectively. When both vision and voice fail us, the Spirit perceives and pronounces. He illuminates our perception and binds our will to God’s. What we say in the Spirit leads to a seeing that becomes a knowing—first in the heart and ultimately, in our intellect. Such moments in prayer are a bridge across a humanly impassible terrain.

Such intercession is beneficial, yet not primarily for personal benefit. It’s for Kingdom causes. The word intercede means to align. It describes a “happening,” a fascinating moment in prayer when the Spirit lights upon us. The image is that of the Spirit bending over, hovering, to confer a benefit and, in the same moment, aligning us more fully with God’s will.

These moments come with sound effects—groaning and sighing. The word used here is a graphic term describing sounds that humans make when they are under heavy burdens or pressure. In the midst of grief or frustration, the inexpressible is expressed. The groan substitutes for what is unutterable, indescribable, and beyond the momentary capacity for language. Overwhelmed by the swirl of trouble and confusion, the difficulties are too deep for human words, so the Spirit helps. He prays with us, through us.

The Spirit of Truth expresses our inner desires, speaking honestly. Yet it is not exclusively the Spirit praying. Such prayer requires our collaboration and articulation. It is our voice, our tears, our hands lifted, and our hearts open. Our capacity for speech is inadequate. We cannot collect in our “rational” minds the thoughts we need to express our feelings, hurts, or hopes. That limitation is precisely why the Spirit is so helpful.

At times, forces against us are formidable, superhuman, and demonic. When we do not know how to pray as we ought, we lean on the Spirit!

A Final Note

Through travailing prayer, births come. However, travail only delivers what intimacy has conceived. Not all prayer should be intercessory groaning and travail. Yet there is no delivery of the child of promise without it.

In the end, the eschatological synchronization will be complete. Earth and heaven will say the same thing. “The Spirit and the bride [together] say, ‘Come!’” (Rev. 22:17, brackets added).

Until then, we and the brooding Holy Spirit are partners. God works in no other way. Our alignment in prayer enables the partnership that advances God’s Kingdom. Our tasks require more than human energy, and the “Spirit” of Jesus needs a body through which He can speak and act—the body of Christ, the Church. The empowering connection comes by prayer.

God-encounters, such as Romans 8:26–27 describes, is beyond the grasp of our conscious, calculating minds. But in them we experience God—not on the grounds of intellectual logic—but rather in a dimension beyond human conception. Mystery places God beyond, over, and above either the rational or merely emotional understanding of Him as utterly other, unknowable, and past understanding. He is One whose ways are not our own.

An encounter with the Spirit in prayer changes everything. Harvey Cox says the experience “reaches beyond . . . creed and ceremony into . . . what might be called ‘primal spirituality,’ that largely unprocessed nucleus of the psyche in which the unending struggle for a sense of purpose and significance goes on.”  Cox writes of the practice of “the language of the heart” taking over, calling it “primal speech.”

Such was my grandmother’s example. In such a moment, writes Cox, “The Spirit . . . is available to anyone in an intense, immediate, indeed, interior way.” All attempts to express ourselves to God—art, liturgy, music, symbols—fall short. We all have inherent deficiencies, even with an elevated capacity for language. Therefore, the Spirit helps our weakness.

He prays.

DOUG SMALL is president and founder of Alive Ministries: Project Pray. He also serves as the International Liaison for Prayer Ministries with the Church of God, Cleveland, TN, and is a member of America’s National Prayer Committee. His personal website is pdouglassmall.org.