Prayer Lists

When asked if they have any prayer requests they want to share, many mention things related to either an illness (ex. a relative has cancer) or a financial situation (ex. husband needs a job). God is certainly our Provider (Jehovah Jireh) and our Healer (Jehovah Rapha). He wants us to lay these burdens at His feet. Yet, I think we can learn something through studying the prayers Paul recorded in his letters. His prayers focused on spiritual needs. God certainly cares about our physical circumstances, but He cares far more about our spiritual growth. Lately I have been trying to include more spiritual requests in my prayers for myself, my children, my husband, my children's future spouses, other relatives, and friends. The next time I'm in a ladies Bible study and the prayer list is passed around, I plan to write down some spiritual needs that are on my heart. Maybe part of the reason we tend to focus our prayers on physical requests is because it is easier to see when they have been answered. Spiritual growth is often gradual and not something one can check off and declare accomplished until we are in Heaven with our Savior. Also with some spiritual requests, such as salvation, sometimes we have to wait years before our prayers are answered. May we be persistent and fervently keep petitioning our Father to draw our loved ones to Himself.

"that your love may abound even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight  so that you can decide what is best, and thus be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God" (Phil. 1:9-11)

"have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects—bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness" (Col. 1:9-11)

"I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, —since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength" (Ephesians 1:17-19)