The Spirit's Help - Prayer Beyond Words
As we continue Lent With the Wesleys, let's hear some words from another Charles Wesley hymn. He writes: "Open my faith's interior eye,
Display Thy glory from above;
And all I am shall sink and die,
Lost in astonishment and love."
Overcome by His Glory
Charles is trying to capture how God's love, when we are open to it and sense it, astonishes us. I love how he asks God to open his inner eye so that he can see God's glory, and in doing so, Wesley says he will "sink and die, lost in astonishment and love."
I suppose maybe the best way to die would be in the middle of a wonderful time of prayer! But I don't think that's what he's saying! He's talking about prayer times that are so deep and moving, so glorious, that we sink into a kind of astonishment, a state of absolute awe and wonder, completely lost in God's love.
When Words Fail in Prayer
Paul wrote some words to the Romans: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans." (Romans 8:26). Whenever I've read that in the past, I've thought that he was saying "if you are so lost and upset and broken, come to God anyway, and if you can only groan and not even speak, the Spirit will take your wordless groans up to God." I still think that's true.
But reading these words of Wesley's, it occurred to me for the first time that we might have prayer moments that are so wonderful, so close to God, so full of His glory, that we are at a loss for words! And in those rapturous, joyful moments of prayer, the Spirit also takes our wordless groans of ecstasy to God!
Yesterday we spoke about wrestling in prayer, until He blessed us. After writing that devotional, I spent an afternoon in deep wrestling prayer and had a wonderful breakthrough in my own life. Now, I am wondering if I need to go back to God in prayer and ask Him to reveal His glory to me in such an astonishing way that I sink to my knees in wordless praise!
Have you ever approached a prayer session like that? Have you ever come into church and asked God to show Himself so powerfully?
Maybe this Lent is the time! Maybe God is wanting to speak to you and to me, who benefit from these devotions, to encourage us to seek something wonderful like this from Him.
I'm going to give it a go. Would you?
May God reveal His glory in an astonishing way to us, as we seek Him in prayer.
