If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He [the Holy Spirit] does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.” Romans 8:27 The Message
Our lack of prayer words often freaks us out. It seems we should be better equipped when we set out to talk to our heavenly Father. We’re so good at most other things. We’re never at a loss for words when we converse with our friends and family members. We’re usually talking over each trying to be heard…trying to get our point across.
But in prayer, we seem to either chatter on about thing after thing, fade out mentally, find ourselves working on other projects – not intentionally. Or we maintain a silence that frightens us with its intensity. Not always realizing the silence is probably the best place to start and often, to stay.
It’s in the silence that the noise of the day drains out of us, making way for the Holy Spirit to fill us with whatever heaven prescribes. It’s in the silence that our minds are cleared; that our souls are repaired, that we find clarity that’s difficult to appreciate, at first.
And it’s in silence that the purposed direction for our prayer time imposes itself into the space where we find ourselves with that newly found clarity. It’s in silence that we find the whisperings of the Holy Spirit and are able to hear and respond with our whole selves. It’s in silence we recover the essence of ourselves and our connection to our Maker. It’s in silence we speak heavenly sounds or issue profound groans that require interpretation by God’s Spirit. It’s in silence we gather the strength to proceed, the humility to rise and the faith to leap. It’s in that silence that God’s purpose for that moment rises up in us with the intensity of rivers of living waters. And it’s from that silence that overflow proceeds to bless us and the many beyond.
Dorothy Scott Boulware 