Praying When You Have No Words

How do we pray when we have no words? When you don’t know what to pray or simply can’t find the words?

Several months after my husband died, I walked outside to find my six-year-old son with his dad’s bb gun. I was alarmed and had a serious conversation about why he couldn’t get it without permission and an adult present. He nodded, I locked it up, and I thought that was that.

Until a few days later when I walked outside to find him doing the same thing. This time I wasn’t as patient and told him in no uncertain terms the bb gun would be gone if it happened again. I could see tears welling in his eyes as I took the bb gun back inside.

Walking into the laundry room, I closed the door, buried my head in a pile of laundry, and let the sobs of sorrow come.

I knew this wasn’t disobedience. This was a six-year-old boy grieving his dad and the times they went shooting in the woods, fishing at the river, or took trips to the hardware store.

No words formed as I cried into that laundry pile, pouring out my grief to God that I couldn’t fix my son’s pain.

But God heard my groans.

Not more than an hour later, a friend called saying her husband wanted to have my sons to their farm. Was there anything special they could do, she asked?

Oh, yes. Knowing her husband was a bird hunter, I asked if he’d let them shoot to their heart’s content. And would he talk to them about guns and safety like a dad talks to their son?

God not only heard my prayer without words; he answered it.

6 Truths for Praying When You Have No Words

The Bible speaks to wordless prayers.

Romans 8:26-27 says: “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. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27, ESV)

This verse gives us six scriptural truths when we don’t have words to pray.

1. God anticipated prayers without words.

God who created us foresaw there would be times we wouldn’t know what to pray.

In my own grief or difficulties, there have been times I was simply out of words or too exhausted by circumstances to form a cohesive prayer.

God who knew we’d experience these times of weakness made provision for our wordless prayers through the Holy Spirit. It’s one more way God cares for us and meets us in our deep pain.

2. God hears our prayers without words.

What grace that God hears our deepest, unspoken heart’s cries. Our prayers don’t have to be expressed aloud.

We see this in Hannah’s prayer of deep grief. (1 Samuel 1:9-16). Hannah endured years of infertility and when her husband’s second wife, who had many children, cruelly taunted her, Hannah took her pain to God at the tabernacle.

Hannah was deeply distressed and wept bitterly. She prayed “speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard.” But God heard her prayer and answered her, giving her Samuel as her firstborn and followed by several other children.

3. God welcomes our wordless lament.

Tears are prayers of wordless lament. Lament is bringing our hard emotions and tough questions to God to re-anchor our trust.

Psalm 6 shows us how God heard David’s tearful lament:

“I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping…for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping. The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer.” (Psalm 6:6,9, ESV)

God welcomes and hears our lament as well.

4. Prayers without words are perfect prayers.

When we don’t have the words to pray, the Holy Spirit does. He knows both our deep heart wrestlings—even those we aren’t aware of—and the thoughts of God. He intercedes perfectly for us “according to God’s will.”

Even when we don’t have words, the Holy Spirt does and his are perfectly aligned to God’s will. When all we can do is utter “help” or sob into a pile of laundry, the Holy Spirit covers us in perfect prayer.

5. Prayers without words help us hear God.

Our wordless prayers leave room for us to hear God. To sit with the Lord and let him comfort us and strengthen us. We can quiet the distracting noise around us to be still and know that he is God.

When we don’t have words to pray, God may have words for us. He may remind us of his past faithfulness, a promise to lean on, or a scripture truth we need. He may have insight we need or wisdom for our circumstance.

6. God is working good even as we have no words for prayer.

The times we have no words to pray are often times we’re at our lowest. We’re exhausted from grief or aching from loss or taxed by our circumstance. We may wonder whether God’s even paying attention or doing anything about our pain.

But as the Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t have words, Romans 8 declares that God is causing all circumstances to work together for good. (Romans 8:28)

At our very lowest, when we don’t even know what to pray, we need the reminder that God is at work and he’s causing even this difficulty to work for good.

The tears we cry into our pillow never go unnoticed by God. Nor do groans too deep for words. When we don’t have words to pray, God hears our heart.