He Sent a Helper

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."  -Romans 8:26


"What am I doing here?"


This one question I have asked consistently since arriving to California. In my season of doubt, it poured forth as a groaning of my spirit, asking how this girl wound up in this place, surrounded by a living Urban Outfitters catalog and wondering when she could jump on a plane back home. 

"What am I doing here?"

Ah, but now my mission is clear. I am no longer struggling to find out how I ended up here. I know the answer: The faithful I AM has brought me here. To worship Him. To know Him better.

 And yet, the question remains. 

Perhaps it is not so much "what am I doing here?" as much as it is "HOW am I still here?"

So SO SO SO many times I wanted to quit. So many times I decided this life--in this weird, cold alternate universe I was living in--was not worth hanging around to see what God called me to. If indeed God was even real. I'm out. Peace. 

"How am I still here?"

As I came out of my dry and doubting season, I realized that no amount of strength or persistence or steadfastness on my part has kept me forging forth. I now know that in my times of doubt, when I decided that I knew better than the Creator and this was NOT where I was called, in my times of scouring the internet for plane tickets home "just for fun," a Great High Priest was pleading for me. He was speaking a secret language with the Father that I would never be able to express--because my mortal words fail to dictate the will of God. 

And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

When I prayed for redemption from a physical place in my life, the Spirit prayed for my redemption from the hardness of my own heart. When I prayed to be released by the Lord, to just have Him let go of me, the Son triumphed in His mighty prayer next to the right hand of God, "This one has been bought with a price, We won't let her go."

Therefore the Son is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. Hebrews 7:25

Be encouraged with me. 

Whatever we face, we know that His perfect will for our lives is written in perfect love. 

That His ways are always perfect, even when our lives aren't. 

That He wants His perfect will for our lives and knows exactly how to, and does, pray for it. 

And that as we cry out to Him, He is already interceding for us in a way beyond what we can articulate. He speaks with the same heart as His prayer that kept Christ on the cross--so that it would be accomplished. 

Before the throne of God above,

I have a strong and perfect plea

a great High Priest whose name is Love

who ever lives and pleads for me

My name is graven on His hands

My name is written on His heart

I know that while in heaven He stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart