When we don’t know how to pray.

Apologies in advance. Don’t want to brag. Last week I gave a silly grin of pride. Yes, shameless pride at my four-year-old granddaughter.

In those delicate hands, she held her Mom’s cell phone. And in seconds, she managed on her own, to text a message to her other grandma.

The message read: “Alyssa qwert7iopasdkdlf.”

Grandma texted back, “Alyssa, it’s you. I love you!”

Besides spelling her name correctly, the message was no message really, it was just gibberish, made no sense. Yet, grandma understood and replied. She knew where it came from.

When communicating with God, sometimes we do the same. When we just don’t know how to pray, don’t have the words or the way to express what burdens our soul, then spiritual gibberish comes out. But the Lord knows. He knows where they come from.

Have you been there? When praying seems to be an unfamiliar concept because we’re in the foreign land of pain and anguish. When loneliness and fear block any word of prayer, it’s in these moments when God receives the text from our heart. And silently, yet powerfully texts back, “…I love you.”

But, in His intimately-given love, He doesn’t stop there. He wants to reassure us that He has ways to know our sorrow, understand our plight, and see our wounds. He is familiar with our weakness. And for us doubtful chicas, Paul spells it out “… the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27).

Father, I praise you because when I’m too weak to formulate my thoughts and words, you hear my pleas. I thank you for the reassurance that you have the divine way to make sense of my spiritual gibberish. Thank you for the freedom to approach you, voice my need, and count on your divine answers. In Jesus’ name, amen.

• When was the last time you cried out to God?
• What hinders your prayers?
• When did God answer your prayers in a way that exceeded your expectations?