O Lord, open my lips, That my mouth may declare Your praise.
O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.
O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.
We were new. New to the area, new to this church, new to these people, this style of worship, and this mission field. I enthusiastically embraced it all. (What we didn’t know at the time, but were soon to learn, was that we were also embarking on a new, deep relationship with the Lord.) When it was announced that folks were needed to pray for an upcoming mission trip, I was one of the first in line to sign us up for a time slot. At the designated time, Henry and Peter and I gathered together in the living room, Bible in hand and, well, we just looked at each other. What were we supposed to do? Yes pray, but for what exactly and how? It was an astonishing revelation to us that we didn’t know how to pray, not really. It turns out that we only had an inkling of how true that was.
That morning, that essentially started with, “Lord, teach us to pray,” was the beginning of an incredible spiritual journey and the beginning of our learning the many layered truths in the verse,
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for,
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us.*”
Psalm 51:15 • Psalm 70:1 • *Romans 8:26 (NIrV)
