{"id":3162,"date":"2023-11-15T09:18:16","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T14:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3162"},"modified":"2023-11-15T09:19:01","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T14:19:01","slug":"the-spirit-intercedes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/15\/the-spirit-intercedes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spirit Intercedes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here<\/a>

During the month of November we\u2019re taking a look at 21 essential activities of the Holy Spirit, who represents God\u2019s presence in and through every follower of Jesus.<\/em>
 
All her life, Carly Simon has battled the Beast.
 
The Beast is her name for the all-consuming sense of Not-Good-Enoughness that has plagued her from her earliest days.
 
She was supposed to be a boy.  Her parents, who already had two daughters, had even picked out a name for their new son: Carl.  Upon her arrival as a girl, Mom and Dad navigated their disappointment by simply adding a \u201cy\u201d to Carl.
 
Because her father was Richard L. Simon, the founder of the Simon & Schuster publishing empire, Carly\u2019s New York City childhood featured elegant parties and visits by high profile celebrities.  Jackie Robinson and Albert Einstein might drop by for dinner.
 
But underneath it all was the deep suspicion that she was not pretty enough or talented enough.
 
She felt neither favored nor loved.  At age eight she began to stutter.  Her stuttering became so severe that she shrank back at school and at any public function where she might have to talk.
 
One night at the dinner table she couldn\u2019t even say the words \u201cpass the butter.\u201d Her mother, in a rush of compassionate insight, asked Carly to sing the words instead.  The words came out flawlessly.  The whole family joined in.  Soon everyone was singing \u201cpass the butter\u201d in harmony.
 
Music was at the center of the Simon household.  Older sister Joanna (\u201cJoey\u201d) would go on to become an opera singer, and sister Lucy would forge a career as a pop singer and Broadway songwriter.  Sadly, both sisters died one year ago last month, just 24 hours apart, each having lost a battle with cancer.
 
No one suspected it when they were sitting at that dinner table, but their shy, awkward, self-doubting little sister \u2013 the one who was finding her voice while singing for her butter \u2013 would go on to become a global musical superstar.
 
Carly still battles stuttering from time to time, and the Beast can still manifest itself as overwhelming stage fright.  She is one of the few guest artists on Saturday Night Live<\/em> ever permitted by Lorne Michaels to pre-tape her performance.  But it can truthfully be said that Carly Simon got beyond her stammering and found her voice by singing.
 
Do you stutter sometimes when you pray?
 
Do you struggle to find the right words, express the full range of your emotions, or get across to your Father in heaven what\u2019s really on your heart?
 
The Holy Spirit will help you. 
 
The apostle Paul, right in the middle of what many consider his most impassioned theological discourse \u2013 what we now call Romans chapter eight \u2013 describes how this happens: 
 
\u201cLikewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  When we don\u2019t know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes with sighs and groans too deep for words.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God\u2019s people in accordance with the will of God\u201d (Romans 8:26-27).
 
The Spirit, in other words, fills in the empty spaces of our cries to God.  When we can\u2019t find the right words, the Spirit knows just how to pray with us and for us.
 
Perhaps you, too, will find your voice \u2013 your praying voice \u2013 by singing.  Paul talks about \u201csinging with his spirit\u201d in I Corinthians 14:15 \u2013 something we wish he had described in much greater detail. 
 
Or sigh your prayers.  Or scream them.  Or cry them out with real tears.
 
Some people pray best by dancing.  They don\u2019t utter words at all, but offer movements and gestures that mere language could never express.  Still others walk their prayers.  Or silently drive them on country roads.  Or wordlessly pour out their deepest feelings \u2013 whether gratitude, grief, hurt, or hope \u2013 while exercising.
 
When we are too tired, too afraid, too crushed, too angry, or too confused to pray \u2013 to find any words at all to express the longing of our souls \u2013 all we really need to do is turn our hearts toward God as best we can. 
 
The Spirit will always be with us, interceding in such a way that our cries will reach the Father\u2019s ears without a hint of static on the line. 
 
Don\u2019t let the Beast have the last word.  Find a way to find your voice \u2013 your praying voice. 
 
Even if we stutter, God is always eager to hear whatever we have to say. 
 
And his Spirit will faithfully fill in the gaps.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here During the month of November we\u2019re taking a look at 21 essential activities of the Holy Spirit, who represents God\u2019s presence in and through every follower of Jesus. All her life, Carly Simon has battled the Beast. The Beast is her name for the all-consuming sense of Not-Good-Enoughness that has plagued her from… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[352,655,179],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-holy-spirit","tag-intercession","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3165,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions\/3165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}