You bring an unspoken request, and that is often the heaviest burden of all. The heart knows its own bitterness, and the wound that is concealed from every human eye festers in the dark. Yet it is precisely there, in that hidden place, that the Great Physician does His deepest work. The letter of your trouble contains a kernel, which is the inner cry of your soul, and He hears it though no word escapes your lips.
It may be that you feel yourself to be one of God’s hidden ones, hidden away for safety, hidden away for quiet, or hidden because you are not understood. You are a stranger among your own household, a foreigner in the very pew where you sit. Remember, though you are hidden, you are not hidden from the Lord. You are hidden by Him, but not from Him. He can read your thoughts. He sees that hot tear that is beginning to lift the eyelid. He notes not only what you need, but what you will need.
Your unspoken petition may arise from a keen sense of personal need, a need you cannot even name. You say, “I do not feel my need enough.” That very lack of feeling proves the need to be all the greater. You cannot trust your feelings, because, as you confess, you have none. Why, if God were to hear your prayers and make you feel your need, you would begin to trust in your feelings, and would be led to say, “I trust Christ because I feel my need;” that would be just saying, “I trust myself.” The gospel is not hidden from you because you are too sinful; it is hidden only to those who are lost. If you know yourself to be a sinner needing a Savior, then it is hidden no longer.
Do not imagine that you must make yourself better before you believe in Jesus. That is to elbow Christ out of His place! He came not to call the righteous, but sinners. If you cannot pray as you want, then pray as you can. A living dog is better than a dead lion, and one true groan is better than a fine oration. You must, yourself, believe, and it must be your own personal act or you will never be saved. Let not your faith stand in the wisdom of man, nor in the excitement of a crowd, but in the power of God.
Perhaps the unspoken thing is a burden of service laid upon you that no one sees. Heir of heaven, blood-bought and blood-washed, Jesus did not save you by another. You have a personal religion, a personal Providence, a personal God listening to your prayers. What can be a more logical conclusion than that personal benefits received should be reciprocated by personal service? He sees the weariness, the self-denial, the anxious thought that attends the duty He has assigned you in secret.
If the unspoken need is the very life of your soul, if you feel half-starved and ready to die, then hear this: none can keep alive his own soul. The fat need Jesus as much as the lean. You need a particular blessing to come to your own soul. You need not merely to breathe, to live with a faint pulse, but to have much life, that you may enjoy it and use it for the glory of God. Cry out to Him who is the Food of them all. He is a very present help in trouble.
I leave you with this charge: get such a hold of the gospel that you need not be dependent upon the preacher or upon earnest companions. We have a personal God, and we are persuaded that all things must work together for good. We must come out of the darkness, but even in the darkness, the Lord shall be a light about us. Look to Him now, and though your request remains unspoken before men, let it be poured out like water before the Lord who sees in secret.