There is a level of despair that cannot be expressed with words. It is a guttural utterance emanating from a person who is at the end of their rope not knowing what to do next. It’s a sound made when people experience the unexpected loss of a loved one, the betrayal of a close friend, or abandonment in the covenant of marriage. I have heard these groans as people were coiled up in a fetal position appearing helpless except for their hope in God. It is a groan for what is not yet present in their suffering but is promised to come. 

Three times in Romans 8 the word “groan” is used to describe this condition. 

“For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (vs. 22).

“And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering”  (vs. 23).

“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words” (vs. 26).

This is the same word for groaning used by Stephen when he was preaching and describing the burning bush experience when the Lord appeared to Moses telling him He heard the groaning of His people who were living under the cruelty of slavery in Egypt. It was their groaning that caused Him to intervene on their behalf.

Groaning is not a lack of faith. It is the sound our faith makes when we are in pain yet realize something more is coming – something above all we could imagine while still living in our present state of suffering. Groaning is the vocabulary of a person crying out for the full measure of their promised inheritance.

God hears our groaning. He will never fail to answer the call of that sound, especially when we lack words to express the depth of our pain.