When You Can't Find the Right Words to Pray

Earnest prayer. Deep requests. Heartfelt praise. Sometimes our hearts feel things so deeply – there are just no words. We are confounded to know how to express ourselves, and don’t know how to possibly convey our feelings into words.

We want to pray, but we don’t know how to pray.

I love where in the Bible it says,

“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.” Rom. 8:26

Did you catch that? God prays on our behalf. 

Oftentimes, when we find words escape us, we can simply ask the Lord to pray on our behalf. We can have confidence and complete peace that the prayer is in line with God’s will, because He is the one praying!

In these moments when our hearts are feeling so much, oftentimes, our feelings come out not in words, but in tears. As we sift and seek out our own feelings, as we ponder how to come up with the right words to give weight to what our heart is feeling – tears fill up in our eyes. And those very tears are sometimes all we need.

Those tears tell God everything we want Him to know.  They tell Him everything our heart is trying to say. They tell Him the full extent and depth of what we want to say in prayer. Those tears ARE our prayer.

We don’t have to give God a grand gesture in our prayers. We don’t have to have big words. We don’t have to be really holy, and our prayers don’t have to be lengthy in order to be passionate.

I look back on God’s example in the Bible and He never did anything grandiose or flowery. He always did things simply, with a genuine, loving heart.

What could be more simple or genuine – than our tears?

All I know, is that sometimes when words escape my tongue, they form in my eyes with a glisten, and I think that is perfectly acceptable to God. He knows our heart anyway, and He knows that we are not always eloquent.

I think sometimes, our tears are the exact PERFECT prayer.

So if you, like me, struggle at times with the deep emotions in your heart and you can’t seem to find the right words to bring before the Lord, remember that He sees all and He knows all. He can see and feel your heart.  And if your tears should come at times, as mine do – know that if our God is a God who chooses to pray for us and on our behalf when words escape us, that He too, will accept and value your tears with the weight and meaning which comes behind them.