IMPERFECTIONSample

Imperfect Prayers

Our prayers are another imperfection that God has truly covered (just like all the others). As Paul writes about himself, and all of “us”, we receive the help of the Spirit to augment, and even supersede, our imperfect prayers. 

In The Feel of Steel, the writer Helen Garner speaks of comparing different Bible versions for this verse. Her preference? The RSV rendering: “with sighs too deep for words”. For an accomplished author like Garner to admit that words sometimes fail her is truly something. The same can be true for all of us. 

God is ready to come to our aid – even when we need to pray. Just like with our other imperfections, God has His provision ready. Is prayer something we do by ourselves? No, like so much else, it is something that God does alongside and through us. 

This morning or evening, sit in silence and see what prayer comes to you.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I thank You that Your Spirit can take my imperfect words, even my imperfect silence, and can intercede on my behalf.