One thing I’ve always found fascinating is comparing our prayers to prayers found in the Bible, especially those of Jesus and Paul. If you attend a prayer meeting, or hear public prayers, you will tend to hear prayers for health, financial prosperity, physical safety, traveling mercies,
and other temporal blessings.
James tells us specifically to pray for relief from suffering, and for healing, even asking the church, through the elders, to do the same (James 5:13, 14). And remember that prayer which transfers our anxieties, whatever they may be, to the Lord (Philippians 4:6) always is in order! Likewise, we are called upon to pray for our government and its leaders (1 Timothy 2:2).
These are normal, and quite appropriate requests. Jesus Himself taught His disciples to pray about their daily bread (Matthew 6:11), and the Apostle Paul explained (1 Corinthians 10:31) that everything we do, including eating or drinking, should be done as unto the Lord. If eating our food each day calls forth a prayer of blessing and thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4, 5), then there is no matter too small to be bathed in prayer.
But there is another, more expansive type of request that we may be missing, the “Thy Kingdom Come” variety, which looks beyond our temporal realities and views them in terms of both our destiny and the present cosmic war between good and evil.
Jesus prays (John 17:16, 20, 21), “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth,” and “I do not ask for these only, but also those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
Paul prays (Ephesians 1:17-19) that God “may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart 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. . .”
There are many other similar prayer requests and heart cries hidden in the pages of Scripture, especially the Psalms, which regularly show David praying over his latest fears or enemy, and at the same time seeing all of his struggles against the backdrop of God’s ultimate victory in which His enemies are judged once and for all, and the Son of David is enthroned forever.
Truly, our prayers can not be too small, but just as truly, they can not be too large! Let’s pray both for our daily bread, and for the day when we will feast with Jesus in the Kingdom.
“And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you,
asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
so as to 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;
being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy;
giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”
Colossians 1:9-12