Ask your needs

Let’s be reminded of the scriptural teaching that we don’t know what we need or how to ask. Romans 8:26 teaches us we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. Our goal in asking is to recognize Him as the ultimate resource for our needs.

Romans 8:26-27 NLT

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. [27] And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.

We are still directed to pray for what we think we need. We trust God the Holy Spirit to re-word and re-deliver our prayers in a more fitting way to God. God is not only involved in the recovery of our prayers but also in the delivery of our prayers.

I believe it is in asking, we learn two things. 1. We are needy and dependant. and 2. He is the provider and source of what we need. It’s important to have that relationship correct and understand the flow of provision. We never add to God. Our need is for Him while He never has a need of us. We can be useful to Him but He is beyond the need for us.

I have noticed that this portion where we are instructed to ask for our needs is very brief and receives very little attention. My prayers have not modeled the same proportions and are usually long making requests and light on building worship, surrender, and the release of forgiveness. Yet our God does not tire of our requests and invites us to come continually. Still, I hope to find the correct proportion in my praying.

We are taught here to ask for today’s food. The prayer doesn’t explore this as fully I wish. I am not suggesting that we limit our request to bread and nothing more. The apostles clearly asked for more than basic life needs. We are taught elsewhere to ask for wisdom and healing and forgiveness. But perhaps there is a lesson here regarding the astonishing greed in many of our prayers for more and more comforts. It is likely true that we need to learn satisfaction with less than we already acquired.

As we ask, we are discovering what we think we need. We are learning about the position of our heart and where we are in our journey to becoming like Christ. What we ask for says a lot about what we want. Our requests often center around comfort instead of our need to be Christ-shaped. We come (as we should) to ask for healing and removal of painful circumstances. He can and does still heal His people. The occasions of His healing and preservation should not go unnoticed and undeclared. What we often neglect, however, is to seek out are the diamond lessons only learned under tremendous heat and pressure. Lessons regarding characteristics like humility and patience are never learned in a classroom of comfort. Those lessons are learned as we mine them under the most difficult and painful circumstances.

When God says, “No” do we bother asking again? There is evidence that we should persist in pleading. On the other hand, if we can identify the reason for His refusal, we must move on. When we conclude we have asked the maximum number of times, it’s time to start changing ourselves instead of trying to change God’s direction. I don’t claim to know the maximum number of times. Paul went with three but he also came to understand the reasoning behind the refusal. Afterward, it is time to ask for strength and endurance to face the testing situation. There is a time to stop seeking rescue and start seeking renewal. We invite God to change the servant instead of the situation.

Though I have been slow to do so, I am learning to be grateful to God for allowing me the privilege of learning in the difficult schools of physical suffering and emotional agony. The tests are brutal and the teachers are without mercy. Their assignments are at moments impossible. But the bitter tears that flow water seeds of patient endurance. The roots dive deeply into the soil of complete trust and the hope we have in our God. Eventually, there are blooms of unimaginably beautiful joy followed by fruit with which our God is highly pleased. It is a difficult school, but I encourage you to enroll.

I want us to be encouraged to pray for one another in addition to ourselves. My prayer vocabulary is limited and often confined to “bless” him and “bless” her. I am trying to improve that. Fortunately, we have some strong guidance from Paul and how he prayed for other believers. Let me encourage you to begin a list of how to pray for others as you read scripture and increase your prayer vocabulary. These passages in Ephesians are good starting places.

Ephesians 1:15-19 teaches us to pray for spiritual wisdom, insight, to grow in the knowledge of God, understanding, hope, and the greatness of God’s power for us. Again in Ephesians 3:14-19 we see Paul’s example of prayer when he asks God to empower them, that their roots would grow into Him, and that they would understand and experience the enormous dimensions of God's love.