He Understands What You Can't Say

If you ever find yourself in position of a $10,000 dollar bill you may not recognize the person depicted. His name is Salmon Chase. He was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator, the 23^rd Governor of Ohio, as the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States.

Before all those accomplishment, Chase had seen his share of tragedy. His father died when he was only nine years old, forcing him to live with his uncle. He suffered the loss of his first wife during the birth of their daughter. Tragedy struck again only five years later when that daughter died from scarlet fever. He described the experience as ”one of the heaviest calamities which human experiences can know”. He told friends that, “no language can describe the desolation of my heart”.

Grief can certainly feel that way. But the Bible tells us that God still can understand us even when we can’t express it. Romans 8:26 tells us, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God..” In those times when we don’t know how we should pray or even what we should pray for, God knows and understands our hearts even better than we do.

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Ecclesiastes 12:10

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