poetry of the Spirit

"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

It's intriguing to me that I spend my time toying with words, trying to bend words into paragraphs and poems to explain the thoughts of my heart accurately... and that there are things in my heart that I will never be able to express accurately with words.

 Poetry is at its most beautiful when it can express the deepest feelings of human existence, the things we thought we couldn't describe.  The poetry of the Spirit must be mind-numbingly beautiful... "groanings too deep for words."

There are times when my emotions are so deep, or my confusion is so great, that I am at a loss for words.  That is where the Spirit can move and intercede for me.  And often, so often I forget that He is even here, dwelling with me.

I believe this extends beyond our own personal prayers.  I feel this conflict when I'm listening to someone.  Not the half-listening I'm prone to when I'm doing too many things at once.  The focused listening.  When I listen to someone that is struggling.  Struggling with sorrow, direction, depression.  When someone feels like the world is dark and cold.  Again, the confusion.  Lord, I don't even know what to say, let alone what to pray for them.

How do I pray?  How do we pray when we've run out of words?

I think we can tell the Spirit when we have no words and ask for His intercession on our behalf and on behalf of others.  And, because He is God and we are His children, I believe He intercedes even when we are not strong enough to ask Him to.

This makes me wonder.  How often do my thoughts turn to the Spirit?  The One who can express the inexpressible?

"Some souls think that the Holy Spirit is very far away, far, far, up above.  Actually He is, we might say, the divine Person who is most closely present to the creature.  He accompanies him everywhere.  He penetrates him with Himself.  He calls him, He protects him.  He makes of him His living temple.  He defends him.  He helps him.  He guards him from all his enemies.  He is closer to him than his own soul.  All the good a soul accomplishes, it carries out under His inspiration, in His light, by His grace and His help."  -Concepcion Cabrera de Armida

I often forget the Spirit, the One that is so close, the One inside me.  The One who speaks when I have no words.  What power would be present among the body of believers if we truly understood and communed with the Spirit that Jesus gave us?

I want to learn to seek the Spirit, not just when I am at my most desperate, but at all times.  I want to seek Him each day and communicate with Him always.  I want to be in constant conversation with the one who is closer to me than my own soul.

 "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him or knows Him.  You know Him for He dwells with you and in you."  John 14:16-17

Jesus has given us His Spirit.  He did not leave us alone.  The Spirit is our Helper in our time of need.  Let's learn what it looks like to live with Him together.