When Words Fail You

It’s a phrase intended for when you just can’t find the right words or ways to express a response, how you feel, or the perfect means to end a painfully awkward conversation. I think it’s most often meant when you’re caught by surprise at something. But what if it’s during prayer? Maybe you’ve prayed and prayed over something, and you’re worn out and just don’t know what to say or think anymore.
 

More often, it seems people I know of are in some sort of crisis. I don’t know if this is because I’m getting older and I’ve seen a thing or two, it's simply an element of a growing ministry, or if it’s the current spiritual climate—perhaps a combination. Maybe I’ve just become more aware of the way the fallen world is, and I find it increasingly unbecoming. These crises are real situations, complicated ones that never seem to end, that you don’t always have answers for when others come to you—but you can pray. And as a prophetic intercessor, oh-I-do pray… I pray through spiritual warfare assignments, burdens, and compassions the Holy Spirit puts on my heart. I pray over requests others bring to me, appeals before the Father, ultimately asking for his will. I pray for family members and friends who need an ear, or to join hands with them in an offering of praise or a petition before God, to be an Aaron or Hur to help support the raised arms of a fatigued Moses (Exodus 17:12), a caring and willing vessel to devotedly step into another’s shoes to request of the Lord that those shoes be renewed or removed. It’s down to this: I try to be there for others, I’m called in this way, at the very least to be an encourager if even in a miniscule way.
 
And then, I was pondering over all the times when I’ve had seasons of struggle or a crisis of my own. And how they always seem to erupt when my mentors or important people in my life are going through their own things (because the devil likes to strike while it’s hot). I don’t wish to add to anyone’s burdens with my own conflicts when they do come about (we will always have trials and tribulations on this earth). I also concede that I stink at asking for or accepting help from others. Long story short, these situational reasons make it seem like I’ve always had to face things humanly alone, at least emotionally, hearing crickets.
 
So as I thought about that the other night, I stepped outside where it was warm and the moon full. And there were the crickets, literally. The crickets and frogs along the creek near the house were creating quite a cacophony. It was impossible to feel alone when they were so loud (which was cool). I listened to them for a while, and I realized that the sound they created together wasn’t a cacophony at all. It was very orchestrated and together, so rhythmic one could dance to it. Then a few of them would get off beat and send the rest of them in a discordant frenzy, but after several seconds, they all fell back into (I’m just going to admit it) a soothing cadence. It hasn’t happened yet, but one of these nights this strange former-dancer-woman here is going to impromptu dance to the song the Lord gave his crickets and frogs.
 
So how did I get from “when words fail you” to my “dance of the crickets”? It’s because I went out there in the first place because words had failed me. Because I was tired. I know so many who are going through stuff, having serious issues, being stretched over monumental transitions, and I feel greatly their burdens. When someone’s heart breaks, my heart breaks too. When someone suffers, I suffer with them. That’s one of the draining faults I have while interceding: when I prayerfully invest in somebody or something, or I’m given by the Holy Spirit words of knowledge through dreams and visions, it’s hard to let go; it's hard not to be troubled. It kind of feels like your baby then, like you’re living in that (their) world, and it’s a challenge to look at it objectively, or to walk away when it's finished business. This is something I’m still working on: trusting more and abiding in Yeshua’s intended “yoke easy burden light” (Matthew 11:30). He already paid the price and we're to live in his grace. Still, when life smacked me recently with stuff that I personally didn’t know what to do about, or wish to burden others with, I felt weak.
 
When you pray and nothing happens, or you pray and something happens but not what you’d expected, or you pray so much over something you’ve run out of what to say or the steam to say it, maybe your throat’s finally all dried up, there’s always the example Jesus gave us, when he taught us how to pray in Matthew 6. We’re to pray in secret, not use vain repetitions thinking we’ll be heard by speaking lots of words. It’s so simple, and not based on our effort… ever, at all. The Father knows what we need before we ask. (What a huge relief! —Thank you, God!). He said, in Matthew 6:9-13: “This, then, is how you should pray:
 
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’”
 
Then, honestly, if you’ve done that yet can’t even utter those words anymore, IT’S OKAY. For the Holy Spirit himself will intercede for us with groanings too deep for words. When words fail you, think on Romans 8:26, and accept the help of the Holy Spirit: “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.”
 
In the mix of the crickets and frog cadence were groanings too deep for words.
 
When words fail you, God does not.
 
~Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”