groaning spirits

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words with out a heart." - John Bunyan

"The best prayers have often more groans than words." - John Bunyan

I think these two might be the same passage but translated from middle english differently.

"the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. " - Romans 8:26-28 The Message/Eugene Peterson

Two shocking things first, 1. Yes I actually did use the Message - my perenial enemy, but sometimes Peterson just does a better job. and 2. I'm actually updating this blog again, normally I only do it when I feel really depressed.

These 2 passages really hit me tonight. Bunyan's idea which I find a commentary on Romans, that sometimes the groaning of our hearts and spirit are prayers to God.

Tonight a friend called me who I love a great deal, like one of my top friends in the world who I would die for, and as I thought about how much I missed them my heart groaned in prayer. I feel like my spirit prayed to the Spirit of the Lord that I really want to see them again. It was a soul-longing (to use J.K. Rowling's phrase). And so tonight I'm reading and praying and just realizing how much God loves us and is intimately connected to us, that when our hearts groan, he's the first to hear it.

I love the Holy Spirit, he's cool.