Sometimes our prayers are too small.
Many of us keep lists of people and situations we pray for regularly. I am so thankful we can call on Him in times of weakness, stress, and heartache. And we know God hears our prayers and answers them in His good and perfect time and according to His sovereign will. When our prayers are answered we praise Him – as we should.
Praying this way is well and good. We need to be able to lay our cares before our Father. First Thessalonians 5:17 says to “pray without ceasing,” and what a wonderful gift we have been given because we know our Father hears us. It is absolutely right that we lay our cares before our Lord. But what if there is something more, a bigger way to approach prayer?
Ephesians 1:15-19 gives us a glimpse of a different way of praying for our loved ones. Paul is talking about how he is praying for his faithful friends. He says, “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.”
He prays that God will give them the Spirit of wisdom, revelation in the knowledge of God, that the eyes of their hearts be enlightened, and that they might know the hope to which they have been called, which is the inheritance of the saints and greatness of God’s power toward them. Wow! I would love for someone to pray this way for me, wouldn’t you?
This is such an all-consuming, passionate prayer. Imagine how praying this way would transform the lives of our loved ones, as well as our own. Our God is powerful and He loves us in our brokenness, our incompleteness. May our prayer for one another be that He wraps us in “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.”
Will you join me in praying bigger prayers?
