WE KNOW NOT WHAT WE SHOULD PRAY FOR AS WE OUGHT

This phrase describes the dilemma which often confronts us as we start praying.

There are circumstances or persons about which we want to pray but we do not know what to ask for. We may lack some of the relevant facts, or we may be unsure as to what would be the best outcome for those involved. For example, if someone contracts a terminal illness involving severe pain and requiring constant attention, ought we to pray for a full recovery or for a speedy home-call with its final relief of all suffering?

The RV translators interpret the phrase differently: ‘We know not how’ we should pray as we ought. This implies that our problem is not what we should ask for, but how we should ask for it. It is the manner of our praying, rather than its matter, about which we feel uncertain. Sometimes diffidence seems more appropriate than confidence. The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition combines the two ideas in this way, ‘we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought’. In the light of this statement, our ignorance about acceptable prayer is total.

Our dilemma is solved in the preceding and succeeding pas sages, where the intercessory work of the Holy Spirit is explained. ‘Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities’. Notice that Paul does not isolate himself from his fellow believers here, as though his prayers are more fitting than theirs. He too needs the Spirit’s help, and so do all of us. MORRIS: ‘we who are Christians are not the spiritual giants we would like to be (and sometimes imagine we are) we are weak, and left to ourselves we will always be in trouble’.¹

The Spirit Himself ‘maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered’. Whose groans are these, the believer’s or the Spirit’s? The Spirit is not said to groan, but to intercede with groans, and these may well be those of the believer.

When we cannot find words in which to express our prayer and can only groan, the Spirit takes our groans and makes them into effective intercession. Here is encouragement for those who find praying difficult. Is not this true of us all at times?

¹

L. MORRIS, The Epistle to the Romans, W. B. Eerdmans, pg. 326.