She can pray about everything else and she is not blocked. That needs saying first, because it is not the shape people assume.
She prays in the morning. She prays for her mother, for two people at work, for a girl she mentors who is making a decision she would not make. She is not dry and she is not distant and she would not describe herself as struggling.
There is one thing.
It has been the same one thing since about November, and she cannot bring it because she cannot decide what to ask for.
She has tried to be honest about this rather than dramatic. It is not that she is afraid of the answer. It is not that she is angry. It is a genuinely closed problem: there are two ways this could go and she has thought about both of them properly, and she cannot tell which one is good.
If it goes the first way, somebody she loves gets something they want and something else is lost that they will not understand the value of for about ten years. If it goes the second way, the reverse.
And she is not the kind of person who says whatever You think best and means nothing by it. She knows what that sentence is worth when it is used as a way of avoiding the work.
So she has been sitting on it. Since November. Not praying about it at all, because she will not ask God for something she has not decided is right, and she cannot get to the end of deciding.
And it has started to feel like a locked door in the middle of an otherwise open house.
And that is you with your own one thing, or you would have gone and done something else by now.
Paul wrote your exact sentence and did not treat it as a problem
Here is the verse, and I want you to read the middle clause as if you had never seen it, because it was written for the position you are standing in.
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.Romans 8:26
We do not know what to pray for.
Not: we do not feel like praying. Not: we have got cold. Not: we are afraid of the answer.
We do not know what to pray for. That is your sentence exactly, and Paul writes it in the first person plural, about himself and everybody he is writing to, as a settled fact about the human condition.
You are in the precise condition this verse was written to cover, and it is not a blockage, it is the normal state. It is written that we do not know what to pray for as we ought (Romans 8:26), and Paul says it without a trace of apology. The Holy Spirit is named in the same sentence as the One who handles it.
Now the part that takes the weight off you, and I want you to notice how completely it does it.
Read the next verse.
And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.Romans 8:27
According to the will of God.
The interceding that is going on underneath you is not a louder version of your own guess. It is being made by Somebody who knows the answer to the question you cannot solve, and who is asking for the right thing already, on your behalf, while you sit there in November unable to choose.
You are not required to work out which outcome is good before you are allowed to pray about it. It is written that the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:27), and according to the will of God is a standard you were never asked to meet. The Holy Spirit is asking correctly for that situation right now.
And here is the thing I most want you to hear, because you are precise and you will have spotted the problem with the easy version of this.
I am not telling you to say whatever You think best. You are right about that sentence. Used as a shortcut it is a way of not caring, and you were right to refuse it.
What is on offer is different. It is not you resigning the question. It is you discovering that somebody with better information has been handling it since before you noticed you were stuck.
You have not been failing to pray about it since November. You have been silent while Somebody else prayed about it properly. It is written that the Spirit Himself intercedes for us (Romans 8:26), and the interceding did not pause for your indecision. The Holy Spirit has been asking for the right thing over that situation every day you have been stuck on it.
So sit down on a Saturday morning and let the locked door open.
You are not going to decide this weekend. Nobody here is going to tell you which way it should go, and nobody here is going to hand you a framework for working it out, because a framework is just a slower way of guessing and you already know that.
You are going to turn both hands over, palms up, and say nothing at all for one breath.
Not to surrender the question. Not because silence resolves things. There is no technique here and there are no levels, and a woman who cannot decide is not scoring below one who has.
You are going to say nothing for one breath because Somebody is already asking about it, correctly, and for the length of one breath you are going to stop trying to draft what He is already saying.
You are covered on the one thing, and it has been prayed for properly since before November. It is written that He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit (Romans 8:27). The Holy Spirit has been putting the right request in front of the Father over that situation, and it did not need your decision to make it valid.
Then bring it. Undecided. Both halves of it, unresolved, exactly as it sits.
You are not asking Him to pick. You are putting it down in a room where Somebody already knows.
Declare this over yourself
Say them sitting where you are. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and that standing was given to you rather than earned by getting your requests right. Scripture is the ground under every line and the Holy Spirit is what makes them live in a person. Whatever He does with that situation is His, and the outcome is His.
- Decision I cannot make, you are not the gate on my praying and you never were. It is written that we do not know what to pray for as we ought, and Paul wrote that about himself without a trace of apology. He carries what I cannot say, and my prayer is heard now, wordless as it is.
- Locked door that has stood in this house since November, in the name of Jesus you are open. It is written that the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God, and according to the will of God is a standard I was never asked to meet. The Holy Spirit has been asking correctly over this while I have been stuck on it.
- God, You search hearts and You know the mind of the Spirit. It is written that He Himself intercedes for us, so the interceding never paused for my indecision. I am not asking You to pick, I am putting it down in a room where Somebody already knows.
Romans 8:26
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
