Most of Paul's letter to the Romans lays out the faith carefully, one piece at a time. So when you land in the middle of chapter eight, you are standing in the middle of a long argument, and it helps to notice where Paul begins this particular stretch. He does not begin with suffering. He begins with glory.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18, ESV)
And lest you think otherwise, this was not written by a man unacquainted with suffering. Paul was stoned and left for dead. He was beaten. He was thrown in jail. When he talks about the sufferings of this present time, he is not talking about your coffee going cold. He knew what suffering was, and he still wrote that it was not worth comparing to the glory coming to us.
That is the same comparison Jesus leaned into. Hebrews tells us to look to “...Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2, ESV). Not that the cross was small, but that the joy was greater. Paul is asking us to lean into the very thing Jesus leaned into.
But here is what I do not want you to miss: “not worth comparing” does not mean “not real.” We are saved by grace through faith. And we will be saved, fully, at the end of all things. In between those two, there is a long middle, and the middle is where we actually live. So the question is honest and practical. What does that middle look like?
Paul reaches for a word most of us know from the inside. Groaning.
Everything is groaning
First, creation is groaning. “The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.“ (Romans 8:22, ESV). The world itself is not the way it is supposed to be, and somewhere underneath it knows.
Then, we are groaning. “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait” (Romans 8:23, ESV). Firstfruits is a farming word. It is the first handful of a harvest that is still coming, a real piece of it. It is not just a picture of it, but it is not the whole thing, either. We have tasted moments of joy and peace and the nearness of God, and the taste is the problem, in a way. It is a foretaste of the feast to come, and once you have tasted it you ache for the whole meal. So, we groan.
And then Paul says something that should stop us. The Spirit groans too. “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words...” (Romans 8:26, ESV).
Each of these groans according to its nature. Creation groans as creation does. We groan more deeply, because we remember what was and we hope for what will be, and we are stuck between them. And the Spirit groans more deeply still, because the Spirit sees it all completely. He knows what we were made to be. He knows the full weight of what is broken now. He knows the glory that is coming. Seeing the whole thing does not soften the ache. It deepens it. And the Spirit is not groaning at a distance, watching us from across the room. Paul says the Spirit lives in us. He is groaning right along with us, and even on our behalf.
We do not know what to pray
Right in the middle of this, Paul says a thing that is easy to read too quickly. “We do not know what to pray for as we ought.” (Romans 8:26, ESV).
When I first read that, I heard it as an occasional problem. Sometimes I fumble a prayer, and the Spirit tidies it up. But that is not what Paul says. He does not say “sometimes.” He states it flat, as a standing condition. We do not know what to pray for. We are finite creatures praying to an infinite God, and we simply do not have the knowledge or the perspective to pray as we ought. And it is worse than that, because we are also fallen creatures, praying with clouded minds. So, we really do not know.
Let me pause here to make sure you don’t take away a wrong lesson about our brokenness and our groanings. Your groaning is not evidence that you are living wrong. It is not evidence that your faith is weak. It is not evidence that you are praying badly. Not knowing how to pray is not your failure. It is simply the human condition, and it is the very place the Spirit was given to meet us.
So, if we do not know what to pray, what happens to our prayers? This is where the comfort is. The Spirit is right there in the praying with us. And notice what kind of help this is. He is not a defense attorney arguing your case, as though the verdict were still in doubt. This whole chapter opens with the Gospel assurance: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, ESV). The case is closed. The Spirit is not pleading you innocent. He is walking with you through the groaning. The Father already searches hearts and already knows, and the Spirit's groan is already in tune with what the Father wants. What you have, then, is a lot of grace and a lot of groaning, at the same time, with the Spirit present in all of it. And I cannot think of anything that sounds more like real life than that.
Never at a distance
This presence started with the Son. God came near in Jesus, walked with us in flesh, and then promised he would send another to walk with us and remain in us. The Son came alongside us in the body. The Spirit comes alongside us now, within us. One God, three persons, and never at a distance.
So here is what it means for you this week, when you kneel down and the words will not come.
First, the Spirit is with you, not standing nearby but present in your prayers in a way deeper than we can comprehend. Some of my most honest praying happens in private, over things I would not say out loud to anyone, and the Spirit is in there too, not checking up on me, groaning right along with me.
Second, because the Spirit is with you and in you, you are released from having to get the words right. You can just pray. You can just talk to God, and when the prayer comes out as a groan, that is enough, because the Spirit carries what you cannot say.
This does not promise that life gets easier. Jesus never promised that. He said in this world we would have trouble. And that’s where we live. The real world. Real trouble now. Real hope now, too. Real deliverance coming in the day of our Lord. Our salvation is complete. It’s just not completely complete. And so we wait patiently for the day we still groan for. But we do not groan alone.
What a relief that is.
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