Daily Lesson for July 7, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Romans 8 verses 26 and 27:

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints.

What a great word of comfort and consolation for our prayer - knowing we really don't have to get it right in order to get it right.

Let me be honest, three years of seminary plus another nine years of ministry and I still really don't know how to pray or what to pray for.  I bet you don' either.

We face a decision - should we go left or should we go right?  We have a preference, a desire - but is it God's desire for is?  Do we dare pray for it to come to pass?  Would it be selfish?  We carry a burden - it weighs us down.  We wish to lay it aside altogether, to run free of it.  But is it God's will that we carry this burden?  Is it God's will for us that this burden be our thorn in the flesh?  We desire liberation, resolution, an end to our struggles; we want to be set free from many troubles, predicaments, relationships, stages.  Yet we wonder if this is the way for us - what God has planned for us, and what is necessary.

The Lesson today frees us from fretting too much about all this.  It reminds us that we really can overthink things.  We can be too logical.  We can be so worried about getting everything in right sequence and order and so afraid to make a mistake when talking to God that we end up saying nothing.   Today's Lesson basically says to quite worrying about all that and start trusting.   Trust that we have a Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, who will intercede for us not only when our words fumble but also even when what we desire is not what God desires for us.

If we don't believe that then we need to remember Jesus, who poured out His heart, made His request to God, petitioned for help, and then said, "Not my will but thine be done."

God's will will be done in our lives when we start trusting Him enough to ask anything of Him and begin to discover that even in His "No" there is a great and liberating "Yes".