Or a situation is so complex and mixed up that I don't know if I should step away from it or step into it and both choices look like emotional suicide.
Life is messy, no two ways about it. Messy enough to have us groaning in frustration and afflicted with headaches. And when we're wandering around in a fog, it not only seems impossible to act, it also seems impossible to pray. What can I tell God about this? What should I be asking God for when I don't understand what's going on or what I should be doing? Our souls feel weak, as if we have chronic spiritual anemia.
But God has given us Someone to help us by praying for us - God's Spirit Who lives within us. And the Holy Spirit tells us, first of all, not to despair over life's messiness. No, we should hope! Hope is the hand we hold onto to lead us through the darkness of confusion. For, if we understood what was going on, if we could see the way clear ahead of us, we wouldn't be hoping!
Yes, God the Holy Spirit prays for us to the Father. It's as if we say to Him "Look, I don't know what to say. YOU say it for me." And then we can relax. The Holy Spirit knows us intimately, every thought, word, action, and concern of ours. The Holy Spirit knows what we need - what the situation and people we're concerned about need.
And, soon enough, if we wait patiently, the Holy Spirit gifts us with the fruit of prayer: the knowledge and strength we need to take the first step out of the darkness of confusion. And then the next. The courage and patience we need to wait upon the Lord as He works for the final resolution of all that troubles and concerns us.
We can thank Jesus for the consoling Presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knows how confusing and messy life is; he lived through it with us. He knew we'd be in over our heads if he left us to fend for ourselves when he ascended to the Father. So - he asked the Father to send us the Holy Spirit, that leaping Flame of Love, the Person Who IS the love between the Father and the Son, to stay with us and protect us always, to give us courage, to give us hope.
The fire of the Holy Spirit first leads us to believe in Jesus, and then lives within us to keep teaching us, to keep reminding us of all Jesus has said to us. The Holy Spirit is the One Who showers our dry hearts with spiritual gifts of faith, love, patience, mercy.
The Holy Spirit laughs with us, struggles with us, weeps with us, speaks for us, always in union with us. And as the Holy Spirit intercedes with the Father for us, the Spirit is groaning in solidarity with us at the limited, messy, transitory nature of our lives. Groaning with us as we hope for an end to confusion and arguments and disease and separations. The Holy Spirit is that hand of hope we hold onto in the darkness. The hand that will pull us onward into the Light of joy, the drying of tears, the final Spring of the eternal renewal of our bodies and souls in Heaven.
"Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance. In the same way, the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God's will."
-Romans 8: 24-27.
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