The well-spoken prayers of others inspire me. For example, I am deeply moved by the reflective prayers of Walter Brueggemann, the contemplative prayers of Richard Rohr. Yet the transport of a prayer is not ultimately determined by syntax or intonation. Sometimes the most effective prayers are the ones that go unpronounced.

Back in the dark ages of the 20th century, before the advent of mobile phones and internet search engines, I remember an advertisement for the Yellow Pages, an antiquated hard print directory of business phone numbers, that urged, “Let your fingers do the walking.”  Nowadays, since texting has surpassed both the phone call and email as a preferred means of communication, it seems our fingers actually do the talking.

I have been thinking about the complexity of communication with God, especially the challenge of praying at times when words are hard to come by. Whether the cause is shock, trauma, doubt, depression, or attention-deficit, there are moments that we cannot find the words to articulate our prayers. In response to such a dilemma, I think Paul’s correspondence to the Romans was something more like “let the Spirit do the talking.”

The Bible includes a variety of encounters wherein individuals engage in dialogue with God. Whether these encounters are prototypical or literal, that is a topic for another discussion. My point is that in these conversations, God speaks and understands the language of the people.

The Pentecost story emphasizes that language barriers were at least momentarily bridged or suspended. In a miracle attributed to the Spirit, the historian records that “each one heard their own language being spoken” (Acts 2:6).Writing to the Romans, Paul addresses a unique communication dilemma, a topic I do not see specifically considered by other biblical writers. What happens when you are at a loss for words to formulate your prayer to God?  Paul asserts,

Romans 8:26  “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

What if my grief is so profound, my anxiety is so high, or my depression is so deep that I lose the capacity to speak my prayer to God? Paul proposes that the Spirit bypasses the part of the brain responsible for speech and the vocal cords and interprets our deepest groanings, translating those groanings into prayers.

I am greatly encouraged to know that the Spirit is fluent in my inner dialect and can translate my unspoken prayers with pinpoint precision.