Why Praying For “Good” Is Less Than Great
On many mornings, I have the privilege of driving my children to school. On each drive, I ask them the same question, “How can I pray for you today?” Most days, I get the same reply: “For me to have a good day.” My response, likewise, is always the same: “What?!? You’re going to ask the all-powerful, all-knowing, unchanging God of the universe to simply give you a good day? He has so much more for you!”
Of course, I chuckle – err – die a little inside, because I know and admit that I, too, rarely ask this gracious, kind, abounding-in-steadfast love Heavenly Father that we serve for much more than simply my definition of a “good day.”
When we stop and think about the things that really weigh on our minds and our inability in our own power to really do anything about most of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, it’s no wonder that on many days, the best we seem to muster in our requests to God is “give me a good day.” Because I think we struggle to believe that God is both powerful enough and loving enough to really meet our needs. But James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).
So, what then should we ask of a God whose power, knowledge, nature and love are infinite? The Apostle Paul gives us language to pray for the humanly impossible, and I believe these prayers are a helpful pattern for us to go beyond the surface-level, innocuous prayers that so often mark my (and maybe your) prayer life.
#1 – For the confused, we can pray to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, that we might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Col. 1:9-10).
#2 – For the hopeless, we can pray that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened, that we may know what is the hope to which we have been called, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (Eph. 1:18) and that the God of hope would fill us with all joy and peace in believing, that we might abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:13).
#3 – For the weak, we can pray that we might be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in our inner being (Eph. 3:16), and according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy (Col 1:11).
#4 – For the ungrateful, we can pray that we might give thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of saints in the light, because He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col. 1:12-13).
#5 – For the struggler, we can pray that the God of peace would sanctify us completely that our whole spirit and soul and body would be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that He who calls us is faithful; he will surely do it (1Thess. 5:23-24).
#6 – For the lonely, we can pray that Christ would dwell in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17) so that…
#7 – For the one who feels unloved, we can pray that we would be rooted and grounded in love, that we might have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that we might be filled with the fullness of God (Eph 3:17b-19)…
Why would we pray such humanly impossible, audacious prayers? Remember that when you go to God in prayer, you go to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, and to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Eph. 3:20-21).