Have you ever been so confused that you didn’t know what to pray for? Have you ever been so heartbroken that you didn’t even have the strength to pray? Have you ever wondered if God could possibly love someone who had made such a mess of life? Do you feel helpless or hopeless or worthless?

Then today’s passage is good news for you, for it reminds us that salvation is all of God. Are you having trouble in prayer? Trust God, for verse 26 tells us that the Holy Spirit will pray for us, even when we can’t put our prayers into words. Even when we don’t know our own minds well enough to know what is really upsetting us – we can be assured that God knows. The Holy Spirit can pray for us so effectively because God is the One Who searches our hearts. God knows us better than we know ourselves because in His Holy Spirit, He is living within all who belong to Jesus.

Are you heartbroken by what is going on in your life? Do you wonder why a loved one got sick or died, or why you didn’t get or keep a job, or why that special someone walked out of your life? Trust God, for He not only knows everything about you – all your thoughts and dreams and feelings. He also understands and commands all the circumstances that swirl around us. However hopeless we might feel, the good news is that God is in control, and verse 28 says that He is somehow able to put all the broken pieces of our lives together in a way that will ultimately bring good to ourselves and to others, and that will bring glory to Him.

Do you feel like you have let go of God? Do you feel like you’re so mixed up and messed up that God couldn’t possible love you? Are you so helpless and hopeless that you feel like you’re worthless? Trust God, for He is the One Who reaches out to the worst, the most rebellious of sinners. Verse 30 reminds us that God is the One Who takes the initiative in human salvation. Just as Jesus came into our world unwelcomed and unbidden, just as He died on a cross for people who abandoned Him and denied Him, He still comes to sinners like us. However great the darkness in which we are trapped, He has called us into His marvelous light.

And He comes to us and calls us so that He might justify us, so that He might take all our sins upon Himself. Instead of condemning us for how far away we have run from Him, He comes to us and wraps all His people in a robe of His own righteousness (5:19). The amazing truth is that when God looks at His people, He sees the perfection and holiness of Christ. And Christ did all this so that we might be adopted into God’s family (8:15), so that we might share in God’s own glory.

Do you feel helpless or hopeless or worthless? Trust the God Who knows you. Trust the God Who is in charge of everything that happens to you. Trust the God Who takes the initiative to save even the worst of sinners, reaching out to the lost and binding up the broken. Trust God, and be certain of His love for you.

Romans 8:18-39 (ESV)

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 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.
27 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.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died– more than that, who was raised– who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.