There are some people in my life that I know need prayer, but when I start to pray for them I am full of doubts. Where do I even start? Am I praying the right thing for them? Is this prayer too general? Is this prayer too petty? This week while praying through my randomized prayer cards on the PrayerMate App I felt very encouraged by a message from one of the prayer packs I subscribed to. The message was this: "pray anyway". Romans 8:26-27 says, "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. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God." The author of the prayer feed reflected on this verse: "And so, even if our judgments are misplaced, and we pray for the wrong specific things, when our hearts are right the Spirit of God translates our prayer in transmission, as it were, so that we are heard praying what we would have prayed had we known better to be the will of God—even if we had actually been asking for the opposite specific outcome!" As I read this I felt a great sense of relief. Even when I don't know what to pray, or when I pray for something that isn't going to be helpful, or when there are heart issues far deeper than I can discern the Holy Spirit translates my prayers in accordance with the will of God. I hope that you feel just as liberated as I do in the light of this truth to just pray anyway. Even when you are feeling unsure, trust the Holy Spirit to know your good intentions and trust God to answer according to what we would have prayed had we known with God's wisdom what true blessing needs to look like for those we care about. Inspired by the prayer pack "How to Pray for Unbelieving Family Members" by William Philip available via the PrayerMate app (which I would highly recommend!).
