Perhaps you know the story of Cyrano de Bergerac (modernized as the movie Roxanne with Steve Martin). Cyrano’s friend Christian was clumsy and full of self-doubt as he tried to court the noble and beautiful Roxane, and so the glib-tongued Cyrano whispered elegantly romantic things for him to say.

Normally when we need communication assistance, we get someone who is a better writer than we are (an editor), who knows the law better (an attorney), or whose poetic speech is better than ours (Cyrano). Most of us would agree pretty quickly that it would be great if we had a little help in our prayer life. Amazingly enough, the Holy Spirit himself volunteers to do that for us, but in the strangest way—through inarticulate groans: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God” (Romans 8:26,27).

Not to worry—the Spirit can communicate more in one groan than you or I can in an entire stammered paragraph. What a promise! Imagine—the Spirit himself so strongly wants our needs to be communicated to the Father’s throne that he will carry them himself, edit them, and even write copy for us when we hit writer’s block.