‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.’
Romans 8:26-28
I used to co-host a student radio show at the University of Leeds. Our show was weekly, on Monday afternoon—the kind of time when most students are thinking of putting the kettle on, or having an afternoon nap. Our show was a mix of light-hearted features and competitions, interspersed with soft rock, and easy-going contemporary acoustic. It was essentially four guys in their early twenties, who were a little old before their time.
A key things about radio hosting is the segue—the transition from one feature or topic or song to another. Segues keep up a sense of flow despite a shift in topic. They manage to point both backwards and forwards, to the previous topic, and seamlessly onto what is coming next.
The segue today takes us from the internal warzone of self vs flesh that we explored yesterday, into the wider picture of each one of us living in a world that is also so very broken. Yesterday looked at how our internal reality exists in conflict with our wounded desires; today looks at how this internal reality comes into conflict with the world around us.
The segue, for Paul, is the Spirit.
Yesterday’s reading started us off. We can point our minds and hearts, Paul said, towards either the wounded desires of our flesh, or the holy desires of the Spirit. The one who truly moves towards experienced freedom gets there by pointing their lives, moment by moment and day by day, away from those broken feelings and towards the Spirit of Wholeness. The experience of freedom comes from a thousand daily decisions away from our wounded desires and towards the voice and lead and priorities of the Spirit.
And the Spirit carries us into today’s theme too. Because as we widen out our vista into a world of suffering beyond our internal battles, it is again the Spirit who mediates us into a different way of being.
The Spirit, who articulates in our deepest places the desires of God, in the midst of a world that is groaning for the New Creation. The ache we hear in injustice, natural disaster, and a wounded creation that is so often defined by competitiveness and violence and death, rather than peace and beauty and life. The Spirit is the segue between pain and hope, between our deepest longings and the inbreaking reign of God.
And this truth is so utterly central to what Paul needs us to know. Because he is now taking us deep into the art of living.
Because following Jesus is not simply a matter of knowing about Him, or reading the Bible, or attending church gatherings, spiritual practices, or anything else we can do.
At the core of our Christianity is the contention that the Spirit of God Himself comes to make His home in us. And that, when faced with internal battles or external suffering, it is in both cases the Spirit who points us to a new way of being. Who declares to us our actual reality, our actual identity, the actual things of goodness, and the actual love of God. Without the Spirit, we just have forms of religion, built upon our own stuttering efforts. But the Spirit breathes within us, letting truth and change and hope and love and joy and peace and wholeness gradually happen. He is what moves all this from theory to experienced and transformative reality.
Reflect:
Let your mind wander over the places of pain that you experience. You won’t get through too many, but let some come to mind. Into each of these things, invite the Spirit to testify to your very deepest being the realities of the Kingdom. The truths of who you are and who the Father is; the truths of the age that is surely coming; the truths that no circumstance or pain or trial can ever separate you from the love of the Father.
This work is beyond you. You can’t grasp these things alone. So invite Him in.
What did He show you?
Pray:
Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me,
Enter the recesses of my heart,
And in those dark and hard places,
Let love heal my pains
And truth heal my wounds.
I give you permission,
To change how I see this suffering that I walk through;
I give you permission,
To renew the very desires of my heart;
And I give you permission,
To tell me a new tale as I walk this groaning world—
That the truths of the inbreaking eternity would become more to me
Than any story of this earth.
Spirit, without you, I am empty and lost,
And yet,
With you,
I trust for a heart that is becoming new,
Full of the fresh oxygen of the Kingdom
In the breath of your love.
Show me the Father,
In the Name of His Son,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Numbers 7 | Proverbs 9:1-12