The best thing we can pray for

When life feels overwhelming, my first instinct is often to ask God to change my circumstances. I pray them instinctively without really thinking.

"Lord, please fix this."

"Please make this easier."

"Please take this away."

They're honest prayers. And they're not wrong. The bible encourages us to bring every request before God, and there's nothing wrong with asking Him to intervene. We serve a God who heals, provides, and wants to give us all things good.

But today I've been struck by something different.

While reading a portion in Ephesians, it struck me that when Paul prayed for believers in Ephesus, his emphasis isn't on circumstances. Instead, it's on people and their perspective: (all emphasis below mine)

Eph 1:17 - I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better

Eph 1:18a - I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you ....

Eph 3:16 - I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Eph 3:18,19 - may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

These prayers have lingered with me.

Paul was no stranger to suffering. He knew imprisonment, persecution, rejection, hardship and uncertainty. He certainly wasn't against praying for God's intervention (he is famously quoted for pleading with God about his own 'thorn in the flesh'.)

He wrote the letter to the Ephesians in a time when the church was facing divisions and disagreements due to their former statuses as Gentiles or Jews. The second half of the letter talks about withstanding the powers of evil.

Yet when he prays for the Ephesians, his priorities are striking.

Instead of praying for an absence of divisions or disagreements, or praying that there would be no spiritual hardships brought about by evil, he prays for wisdom. For revelation. For divine vision. For Spirit-fueled strength. For power to comprehend the love of Christ.

In other words, he prays that the Ephesians would come to see, know, understand, and sense God better. Nothing about changing their circumstances.

I couldn't help but wonder why.

I think it's because it's possible to believe in God but fail to notice His presence in our circumstances. We can become so focused on asking Him to change dire circumstances that we miss His presence within them.

I know I do. I'm often so intent on looking for the breakthrough that I often miss God's invitation to me in the mess. I'm crying out so loudly for things to change that I don't hear His whispered encouragement for me to stand firm.

I'm so busy trying to get things to change that I miss the fact that God is trying to change me.

So I'm starting to think about prayer a bit differently. Yes, I'll continue praying for healing. I'll continue asking for provision, restoration, and breakthroughs. For the cups I don't want to drink from to be taken away from me.

But I also want to learn to pray like Paul.

"Lord, give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation."

"Open the eyes of my heart."

"Help me know You better."

"Help me recognize where You are already at work."

Because knowing God, being with God, and sensing His presence isn’t the consolation when life doesn’t go our way.

He is THE prize.