Scripture Reading (God says to you and me the following): “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26).
You don’t know what to say when you pray?
When Rev. Goldenmouth prays in church, turning on his deep, booming cathedral-echoing voice and using his archaic Shakespearean English and abstruse seminary vocabulary, do you tailspin in despair, knowing that you will never ever be able to match such highly professional prayers?
Do you wish you could buy a prayer book and simply read someone else’s prayers?
Relax! God has a better way available to you. The Word of God is the best prayer-book of all. Furthermore, it is the only book in which God Himself is waiting to talk with you.
“You don’t have because you don’t ask! You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss, to spend it on your lusts.”
As we read the Word of God prayerfully, we soon realize that in our previous Bible reading we were not praying. We also realize that we often prayed to spend it on our own lusts. Then, gradually we begin to ask for what God desires us to have, and (surprise!) we begin receiving. So don’t be startled if you find yourself reading the above verses and spontaneously praying something like this:
Prayer (You and I say to God the following): “Father, I don’t know what to pray for as I should, but I know that the Holy Spirit in me is praying for me. Guide me to pray what He is praying, that my prayers might be echoing His prayers for me. It dawns on me that I don’t have because I have not been asking You! And when I have asked, I often asked for vain things that I do not really need. Forgive me, Father. Lead me to only ask for what pleases You!”
From Praying God’s Word – Chapter 3