September 03

What to Pray For?


And we can be confident that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will.

1 John 5:14 (NLT)


On the spur of the moment, I asked my son to say a blessing, to pray before we ate dinner. It was a family reunion, and the table was full of aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. My son seemed pleased to be asked to pray, but then part way through, he seemed to draw a blank. Finally, not knowing what to say, he blurted out the thing that’s most often on his heart, “… and give us a fun time! Amen.”

At the heart of it, I’m not too sure this isn’t the way many of us pray. We ask for ourselves: for some “fun” thing, or for God to take away our pain.

But what does God want to hear?

I believe, first off, He wants our praise and thanks (Psalm 100:4). And certainly, He is pleased when we show love for our neighbor by praying for him or her (James 5:16). Finally, there are our own requests (Philippians 4:6,7). No doubt about it: we have needs too.

While it’s natural to pray for great things for ourselves, real contentment comes when we pray according to His will. Like when we express our love for Him and for our neighbors, and when we ask for our daily bread … yet all the while being thankful for what we have … for what He‘s done … and for what we know He will do. This is when our prayer becomes effective.

Prayer becomes powerful and all things become possible, because we pray for what we know He wants.


Father, thank You for allowing us the blessing of prayer. Hear our prayer, O Lord. Hear our prayer. Amen.