Even if we do understand we still say, “How am I going to handle this? Oh, I don’t know how to pray.” Hence, you begin to groan, and while you are groaning, the Spirit groans in your groaning. When I came to this portion of the Word as a young man I said, “I have never heard the groaning of the Spirit. When did He groan for me?” Eventually, I discovered that in this chapter whatever we do the Spirit also does. When we cry, “Abba, Father,” the Spirit cries also. When your spirit witnesses within you, the Spirit also witnesses. Likewise, when you groan the Spirit also groans.
Why do we groan? Because we feel suffering and do not know how to pray. It seems that the Holy Spirit gives you no utterance. You are ignorant, and the Holy Spirit in like manner seems to be ignorant. You do not know how to pray, and the Spirit also appears not to know how to pray. The Spirit prays in your manner. You groan, and He groans also. You groan with hardly any purpose, but the Spirit groans in your groaning with a definite purpose. This purpose cannot be uttered by you, but it can be uttered by the Spirit. However, if He would utter it, you would not understand, for it would be a divine, heavenly language. Since it is difficult for you to understand, the Spirit gives no utterance. He “intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Nevertheless, there is a purpose in it all.
What is the purpose? The Holy Spirit groans in your groaning in order that you may be fully molded and conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son. This is the purpose. When many saints encounter hardship they say, “I just don’t know why this happens to me. Why does this happen to me?” I believe that we have all said this or asked this many times. Even you who have recently been saved perhaps have already spoken in this way. Why do certain things happen to you? Because the groaning Spirit prayed for them. Although you do not know the purpose, He knows, and He prays according to God. Christ is the pattern, and the Spirit prays that everything which happens to you will mold you into this pattern, into the image of the firstborn Son.
Not only does the Holy Spirit groan within us in this way; we also may pray for others in this manner. I have experienced this a number of times in my ministry. I recall the case of a dear brother who loved the Lord greatly. However, he had a very peculiar disposition, and no one could tolerate it. Therefore, we prayed for him saying, “Lord, here is such a dear brother with fine potential. He is such good material. Lord, he loves You. But no one can bear his peculiar disposition. Lord, You take care of this. You know our brother’s situation.” Because we realized that praying in this way is quite serious we simply said, “Lord, You take care of this. Lord, You know our brother’s situation.” After a period of time the brother became ill and began to lament, “I don’t know why this has happened to me.” Immediately he asked his wife to contact the elders and to request that they visit him for fellowship. We went. The first sentence out of his mouth was, “Brothers, you know my situation. I don’t know why this has happened to me.” Deep within we, like the Holy Spirit, knew why he was suffering; however, we did not dare to say anything. We simply spoke in our brother’s manner, “O brother, why has this happened to you?” That was all we could say. When the brother asked us to pray with him, we did not know how to pray. We simply said, “O Lord Jesus, why has this happened to our brother?” Although deep within we did know the reason, all we could say was, “Lord, do Your best.” This did not offend him because he also expected the best, and he said, “Amen.” He understood our prayer in one way, and we understood it in another. We were thinking, “Lord, do Your best to deal with him, to subdue him, to burn him.” Although we did not dare say this, we had such a purpose within us, a purpose which we could not express at that time. Nevertheless, God who searches the hearts answered that prayer, a prayer that was according to Himself. The brother’s difficulty continued and the illness lingered for another period of time. He was very troubled and asked his wife to send for us again. We went and asked along with him, “O brother, why has this illness lasted for such a time?” Once again we were inwardly clear, but did not say anything. When he asked us to pray, we simply prayed, “O Lord, we still ask You to do the best.” Praise the Lord that after another period of time this brother’s situation changed. Firstly he had some amount of deliverance from his disposition; then he was healed of his illness. Finally he could shout, “Hallelujah! Now I know. Now I know.”
Why does the Spirit groan in us with words which cannot be uttered? He groans that we may be molded, conformed to the image of the Son of God. It is much easier to speak about sanctification in life. However, accompanying sanctification is the matter of conformation. We not only need to be sanctified, to be saturated with what God is, but also to be molded. We may be separated from everything common and saturated with God’s holy nature, but still lack this conformity. Sanctification probably does not require any suffering. Conformation, on the contrary, needs suffering. In sanctification there is no pattern, only a change in disposition, in nature, but in conformation there is a mold by which we are conformed to the image of God’s Son. Along with this mold is the pressure and the molding and the mixing with water and the burning with fire. If the dough, the fine white flour, could speak, it would say, “What a suffering this is to me. You mix me with other things, you press me, and you even put me in an oven to burn me. The entire process of cooking is a suffering.” That is correct. Without suffering we cannot be molded into the pattern.