Pray for What?

​The dance of God’s sovereignty and prayer is an intriguing one. On one hand, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who pray about every minute detail of their lives as if each is dependent on staying in God’s will, while others hardly pray at all because God knows what we’re going to say and do anyway!

Like with most theological reasoning, it’s always best to begin by stepping back. Usually much is clarified when we step out of our boxes and let God shatter our categories.

Regarding prayer and God’s sovereignty, let’s start with universal truths we know:

God is Sovereign
He not only knows everything that’s happened in the past, is happening now and will happen in the future, He’s orchestrating every intricate detail to fulfill His purposes, which are beyond cosmic. He uses details to accomplish His greater end.

We are Finite
We exist in a TINY span of time and perspective. We’re controlled by and dependent on space, time, creation and our Creator. Because of this, we tend to focus on the smaller things of life—aspects we can see, touch, and feel. This isn’t a bad thing; after all, He does make us stewards of His creation. But it often becomes a deterrent when our narrow focus becomes our ultimate focus—when we think so much about the minute details of life we neglect His cosmic purposes.

We fit into a specific part of His plan
God has a plan, yet His purposes often aren’t defined the way we would define them. God is concerned first, foremost, and always with His plan of redemption (the Gospel). The Gospel is the theme that infiltrates every book and chapter of the Bible, and is the lens through which Scripture must be read because every verse fits into it somehow.

Our goal, thus, should be to consume ourselves with what He’s focused on, namely, the Gospel. Every aspect of our lives should revolve around the Gospel—making Him known and becoming more of who we already are in Jesus.

How does this fit into prayer? 
We pray about what we care about. Someone who prays overwhelmingly for her family thinks most about her family. Families are INCREDIBLY important and definitely something God wants us to care deeply about. However, families aren’t in and of themselves the reason we exist. Like in everything else, we need to place our families in the context and perspective of the Gospel. Our families exist to mirror the Trinity, to represent Christ’s relationship with the church and our relationship with God, to usher our children into the presence of God and teach them how to be Christ’s disciples, and to stand as a Gospel-shining unit to everyone around them. Every aspect of our families should be consumed with the Gospel. Families are a part of our lives and every aspect of our lives should revolve around God and His Gospel!

A KEY Passage
One key passage about this subject comes from Christ recorded in Matthew 6. Christ is preaching His longest recorded sermon (the Sermon on the Mount) and chapter 6 is where we find instructions regarding: humility when praying, the Lord’s prayer, a challenge of where our treasure is, and an exhortation not to worry because our focus should be beyond things of this world.

This chapter is saturated with the Gospel, and challenges us to maintain a Gospel-perspective in our prayer lives.

In the Lord’s Prayer, notice the only part about us and our physical lives is one line—“Give us this day our daily bread.” This line represents our basic needs, not wants or desires. Also, many believe that it reaches beyond the physical, since the image of “bread” often relates to sustenance in Christ rather than just physical food. Every other part of this prayer wreaks of the Gospel—God first, His Hallowed name, His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven…forgive us as we forgive others, deliver us from evil…It’s ALL about Him!

The last part of the chapter is the kicker when it comes to prayers about the details of life. Many of Christ’s listeners were prone to worry and fret about the daily provisions of life. Here Christ tells them in no uncertain terms not to worry because God is sovereign and takes care of everything! Note again, the requests were for the necessary realities of life—the basic necessities of life. Big deal stuff, but no decision they make or worry they endure is as big or out of the reach of the Gospel!

How does Christ conclude this passage? “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
It’s all about perspective. If His kingdom and eternity is where our focus lies, our prayers will mirror it. The more we revolve ourselves around His cosmic plan of redemption, the less we’ll feel a compulsion to pray about the minor issues of life.

Praying through Decisions
When making decisions—minor or major—we should definitely pray about it. God gives us functioning brains to make wise decisions based on logic and wisdom. With all decisions, it’s wise to research options, weigh the pros and cons, and if we’re still not feeling led miraculously in a clear direction while praying through the process thus far, we should submit our decision to the Lord! Make a decision praying that He’ll be honored in it and/or fix whatever mistakes our faulty reasoning failed to incorporate into the process!

Issues with decisions and prayer arise 1) when we don’t make a decision at all because we’re afraid of making the wrong one, and 2) when we take every event/happening as God trying to tell us something either about the decision or about our behavior. God does use circumstances and people to get our attention and reveal things about Him. Yet if our eyes are on Him and we’re seeking Him first (not His stuff or His hand) then we’ll act in accordance with His will without even realizing it!

The bottom line is that prayer can’t be placed in a box. A prayer list of do’s and don’ts doesn’t exist. He’s given us guidelines that we should abide by, but even those aren’t ends in themselves. They’re the means to the true end—worship and adoration of God and His Gospel. We’re called to seek after God and His kingdom/Gospel first, with every aspect of our lives (big and small) revolving around Him. He’s big enough to correct any poor decisions we make and gracious enough to use all our prayers and decisions for His glory.
​
Pray away!