by Linda Veath

Girl praying with hands on 150 year old Bible

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves …. ~ Romans 8:26-27a The Message

My mind was blank. Stalled. Maybe even dead in the water. It was time to work on my Divine Detour devotion and I didn’t have a clue what to write. How in the world do authors of books do it? I can’t find 300 words let alone 80,000. I just sat there with a vast nothingness in my head. (No comments please!)

During that void for words I was reminded how similar this was to prayer times when the words wouldn’t come. I wanted to pray — just like I wanted to write. I needed to pray. But nothing would come out. I could start a prayer and it would just get lost in my head. I could feel all these emotions inside, see all the prayer requests on my list, and yet nothing. The words wouldn’t come.

No doubt you have experienced this too — that’s when God’s Holy Spirit steps in.

The Holy Spirit knows the cries of our hearts. He hears the groans we lift heavenward. He knows the words we are struggling so hard to find. And when those words finally start to flow, the Holy Spirit can “un-jumble” them into a prayer that He lifts to the throne of grace, where they are heard AND answered by the Lord.

A writer friend recently told me when a writer can’t find the words, he/she should write anyway. I have also heard that applied to praying. If you don’t feel like praying, pray until you do. As we start to pray, no matter how feeble our words or vacant our mind feels, the Holy Spirit lifts those struggling prayers to God, and we feel His presence, find our voice in prayer again, and celebrate the love of our God who answers all our prayers — even when the words don’t come.

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Now, as for finding words for a Divine Detour devotion? All thanks and praise go to our God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.