Good morning! I am excited today as I will have my first Bible Study of the year with my friend, Julee. I love her, and she helps make my life more enjoyable. In our Study for this week, I was reminded of my fear that I might not be writing what God wants me to write. Do you ever wonder if you are following God’s will? We pray that we are able to discern what God wants for us, but how do we know for sure? This morning’s lesson was very encouraging for me.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know how we ought to pray, 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)
We don’t often think of ourselves as saints, but God does. He is the one who made Jesus the High Priest to remove our sins, so Paul is talking about all Christians when he uses the word, “saints.” He is talking about us. Sometimes we don’t know if we are praying the right things or interpreting what we feel God is telling us, but if we are living by Biblical teachings, we can know that we are doing things correctly because the Spirit is interceding for us. Jesus took away our sin on the cross so God’s Spirit could live within us. If you are Believers: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are no longer your own.” (1 Corinthians 6:19). When we pray, we do not always know what is best for us or how God wants to work in our lives to do His will. But this passage is a promise from God so we can be sure that the Holy Spirit groans and intervenes for us when our words don’t express what is best for us. We are able to know that we are following God’s will for our lives.
I have had a tragedy in my life. I am still trying to come to grips with it. I don’t know what to pray about it. I don’t know what words to say. I don’t know if things will change. Only God knows this. Will he lead me to a path to take? God knows what is in my heart. I know my words don’t need to be exactly right because He knows my intentions. I don’t know if circumstances will ever change. If God doesn’t want things to remain the same will he lead me to a place where I can make the needed changes?
Just seeing the word tragedy makes me pray for the people in the Northern Bahamas. I also prayed for your tragedy upon reading this. I don’t need to know what the tragedy is because God knows, and He will help you get through it. So, yes, He will lead you to a path. He not only knows your heart, He knows the walls you have built up around it and understands the reasons why even if you don’t. A tragedy is something that has happened in the past that changes something for the worse, but a tragedy can cause us to build a wall around our heart or lead to anger issues. Perhaps in your last sentence you are talking about changes in yourself that the tragedy caused. God is never the cause of a tragedy, but I believe sometimes he lets tragedy happen if he feels the tragedy will result in a person having a closer bond with Him. Unless you are following God’s will completely, He doesn’t want things to remain the same, and definitely will help you make the changes He thinks that are needed. Life should be a process of us wanting to make ourselves better, and God will definitely help with that process because that’s why he put us on Earth instead of taking us directly to heaven to be with Himself. There are lessons He wants us to learn first on Earth. That being said, there was a time when I would get angry and yell at others. God showed me that I needed to change. The change was impossible for me to make by myself, anger would just well up in me. I asked God for His power in my weakness. He gave it to me and helped me, but the process took over two years. I am having a harder time with gluttony. I have asked His help with that many times, but instead of praying when I’m hungry, I grab the jar of peanuts. But I weigh less than when I started praying for the change, so God is helping me slowly. This particular change is harder, and God and I are going on three years with this one. I am praying for you!