(Personal actions of the Holy Spirit,) then Romans 8:26-27, this personal action is intercession, the exact nature of the groanings is debated. Some understand them as the Spirit's own inexpressible intercession, others understand the Spirit working through the believer’s wordless groaning, some Pentecostal interpreters connect the passage with prayer in tongues, but the text does not explicitly mention tongues, the central promise does not not depend on settling that debate. The believer does not know how to pray, the Spirit helps, the words fail, the Spirit intercedes according to God.
If the Holy Spirit is only an atmosphere, this looks like the moment when nothing is happening, there is no music, no crowd, no visible manifestation, but Romans says weakness is not an empty room, the Spirit does not wait on the far side of perfect language, he is present inside the inability. Paul does not say the Spirit watches from a distance while the believers struggles to find better words, the verb helps places him alongside the weakness. The burden is not denied and the believer is not told that mature faith would make the burden easy, that protects this passage from becoming another standard people fail to meet.
A person can be confused and still be helped. A person can be exhausted and still be carried in prayer. A person can have no clear sentence and still be known within the will of God. The comfort is not that every question receives an immediate explanation, the comfort is that the believer’s inability does not create a gap the Spirit cannot cross and that may be the most personal action of all, because it appears where spiritual performance ends, the believer who is comparing gifts in Corinth has nothing to display here. The person trying to discern the right route has no clear map here, the one longing to feel accepted may not feel anything here, yet the Spirit is not absent, he intercedes.
If the Holy Spirit is only an atmosphere, this looks like the moment when nothing is happening, there is no music, no crowd, no visible manifestation, but Romans says weakness is not an empty room, the Spirit does not wait on the far side of perfect language, he is present inside the inability. Paul does not say the Spirit watches from a distance while the believers struggles to find better words, the verb helps places him alongside the weakness. The burden is not denied and the believer is not told that mature faith would make the burden easy, that protects this passage from becoming another standard people fail to meet.
A person can be confused and still be helped. A person can be exhausted and still be carried in prayer. A person can have no clear sentence and still be known within the will of God. The comfort is not that every question receives an immediate explanation, the comfort is that the believer’s inability does not create a gap the Spirit cannot cross and that may be the most personal action of all, because it appears where spiritual performance ends, the believer who is comparing gifts in Corinth has nothing to display here. The person trying to discern the right route has no clear map here, the one longing to feel accepted may not feel anything here, yet the Spirit is not absent, he intercedes.