December 11, 2021

One day there was a wreck near our home.  As we looked out the house, we saw a car on fire.  As I went up the road to see what had happened, I discovered that one of the vehicles had been driven by a Hispanic.  As we tried to communicate with him, we became very frustrated.  He knew very little English and none of us knew any Spanish.   It was probably quite amusing for an onlooker.  We used exaggerated hand gestures to try and communicate with him.  We talked really slow to him, as if that could help.  And then, of course, we talked louder as if loud English is easier to understand than English at regular volume.  The response of the man was the same to all of our efforts; he just sort of stood there and smiled.

What we needed in this situation was not to speak slower or louder.  And the answer wasn’t to be found in a bizarre game of charades.  What we needed was an interpreter.  One who could understand both parties and communicate what the other one was trying to say.

Many times we experience the same sort of frustration in our relationship with God.  We want to communicate with God, but we’re just not sure how to share our thoughts to God.  We’re just not sure how to put words to our feelings.  We try shouting, we try crying, we may even try falling on the ground in prayer, and all of these can be appropriate.  But inevitably, we feel like our prayers don’t get beyond the ceiling and we end up throwing up our arms in frustration.

Take heart.  God knows what we need.  We need an interpreter.  And God has supplied one.  In Romans we read, “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 with groans that words cannot express Romans 8:26 (NIV).”