Prayer Perspective

We need to remember the greatness of the God to whom we pray. We often pray small prayers for small things because we’ve forgotten the transcendent majesty of our God. Far too often, our perspective is trivial, temporal, and insignificant because we rush to our requests without considering just how “hallowed” his Name actually is (Mt.6:9).

When Nehemiah prayed for the challenges he faced, he reminded himself that he “prayed before the God of heaven” (1:4). Prior to laying his supplications before God he addressed him as “Yahweh, God of heaven, the great and awesome God” (1:5). It is good for us to say with Jeremiah, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (32:17). As God himself has said, “Every beast of the forest is mine” and even “the cattle on a thousand hills” (Ps.50:10).

So maybe our prayer list needs an overdue adjustment that comes from remembering that when we pray we are addressing the all-powerful, all-sufficient, everlasting King who has, and always will have, the ability to do whatever he chooses to do (Ps.115:3). So pray big, mindful that he “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph.3:20).