Pentecost Wednesday: Empowered to Pray
A blessed Pentecost, friends! May you know the power of the risen and reigning Christ resting on you and working through you today, tomorrow, and always!
Welcome to the Pentecost Daybook series for these 8 days of celebrating (today through Trinity Sunday).
Look:
1. Pentecost, Sister Corita Kent - Source
2. Word Picture: Gift of Tongues, Sister Corita Kent - Source
Listen: You can listen to my playlist for Pentecost in its entirety on Spotify: Pentecost 2020.
Read: Psalm 49, 53; Ecclesiastes 3:1-15; Galatians 2:11-21; Matthew 14:1-12
*note: I included the evening Psalm instead of the morning because I'm so late in posting this today!
Pray: Prayer to the Holy Spirit
Come, Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful,
and enkindle in us the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.
Amen.
Do: Throughout the week I'll be sharing excerpts from spiritual teacher Henri Nouwen as well as my own brief reflections about the way the Holy Spirit empowers us to live in peace, freedom, and power. Read, reflect, journal, and share your own responses with the rest of us in the comment section below.
Empowered to Pray
"Prayer is the gift of the Spirit. Often we wonder how to pray, when to pray, and what to pray. We can become very concerned about methods and techniques of prayer. But finally it is not we who pray but the Spirit who prays in us.
Paul says: "The Spirit ... comes to help us in our weakness, for, when we do not know how to pray properly, then the Spirit personally makes our petitions for us in groans that cannot be put into words; and he who can see into all hearts knows what the Spirit means because the prayers that the Spirit makes for God's holy people are always in accordance with the mind of God" (Romans 8:26-27). These words explain why the Spirit is called "the Consoler."
Empowered to Pray by Henri Nouwen
Recently we were responding to a really hard day for our family and Brian and I found ourselves going from what we thought would be a joyful day to one that called up a lot of pain and loss instead. Both of us responded in angry outbursts. We were dressed up for what we thought would be joyful and the picture of us driving in the car in our nice clothes yelling our not-safe-for-work language into the air made me even angrier.
After we'd caught our breaths, I started crying and said "I hate the way this is happening. I want my lament to be prettier than what this looks like!"
Brian responded "I think this is what lament is. Messy and raw. This is lament."
That's the scenario that comes to mind when I read Romans 8:26-27. My groanings are sometimes voiceless and look like tossing and turning in the night or stomping around the house fuming at a recent news report. Sometimes it's bouts of tears I can't even explain to myself, let along feel like it's a prayer. When I orient myself in reference to God, as the daughter of God, the sister of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit every tear, ever inarticulate sputter, every wail of anguish is gathered up into prayer. We are not alone, we are in the presence of God with the help of our Mediator and Advocate.
This is a time globally for lament. May I encourage you to not resist the messy discomfort with judgments against yourself or God that prayer should feel more constructive or eloquent. Let your lament be gathered up and articulated by the same Spirit who carried the agony and anger and tears of Jesus as petitions to the Father and provided consolation from the Father.
It's incredible but true. The same Spirit lives in us. May you know and be consoled in the reality that you are not alone.
Peace, friends,
Tamara
p.s., If you'd find it helpful to have another person sit with you in your lament, listening for the consoling voice of the Spirit, that's what I do as a Spiritual Director. You can message me here or through the contact form at my Spiritual Direction webpage for more information: https://www.tamarahillmurphy.com/spiritual-direction