CPE Day 2: morning devotions

- May 27, 2009

Yesterday was my first day of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at Bethany Village. This is an experience I have been looking forward to. I have heard wonderful things about this place and its CPE program and supervisor. It was an exhausting first day however.

Daily devotions and announcements are part of the morning routine at Bethany and this morning it's my turn to do the devotional part. This is what I'll be sharing with Bethany's residents this morning.

Praying According to God’s Will

It can be hard and frustrating to know how to pray for yourself or someone else. We know we should pray, we may want to pray, but find ourselves at a loss for words. We cannot pray correctly.

As crazy as this may sound, our inability to pray according to God’s will is good news. Hear these words from Scripture:

²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Rom 8:26-27)

This is our situation according to these verses:

· We are weak.

· We don’t know how to pray as we should. It’s one thing to pray, but it’s quite something else to pray as we should. In my own life, if God had answered my prayers the way I wanted them answered, I probably wouldn’t be in seminary or here with you today. How are we to pray when friends or family are sick or in trouble or are hurting? What about our own problems? How do we know what God has in mind?

This is God’s remedy. The Holy Spirit:

· Helps us in our weakness.

· Intercedes for us with “sighs too deep for words.”

· Searches the heart.

· Intercedes for us according to God’s will.

I find it interesting that the list of what we can’t do is half as long as the list of what God does. What a relief! Twice in this passage, we are told that God the Sprit intercedes for us. Do you know what that means? God prays for us! God does what we cannot do for ourselves. We should…we can’t…the Holy Spirit does.

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