Does life make you groan more than you thought it would? I never realized how many times life would make me groan. Life is hard. There is so much junk and pain in this world and so much junk and pain in my own life that makes me groan and sigh. Katie reminds me that I groan like a baby when I don’t get my own way (she’s right).
I attended a funeral today for a 44 year-old husband and father. Lot’s of groans there. The minister read familiar passages from Romans 8, but verse 26 jumped out at me as if I had never read it before. It was beautifully powerful and made me love our God even more. Here’s the verse: 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.
Did you catch it? God groans too! Wow. Things are so painful and deep that even God the Holy Spirit groans when words just aren’t sufficient for the pain. Isn’t that just marvelous? A God who groans.
O how I love God because He first so loved me! (1 John 4:19) I can’t get over God the Father loving sinners like us so much that He would demonstrate that love by sending His Son to rescue us (Rom 5:8). I am in awe of God the Son who demonstrates the greatest love that the world has ever seen by laying His life down for us (John 15:3) and who is able to “save to the uttermost” and lives to intercede for us (Heb. 7:25). I am smitten with God the Spirit who lives inside us as Comforter, Teacher, Helper and Groaner!
Truly greater love has no man ever known than the love of our Triune God! It causes me to love Him with my whole being! I don’t have words to express my love for Him…. come on, Holy Spirit, groan for me!
