We pray for “important” things. I don’t want to be disrespectful. We pray for our financial needs, health, safety, acceptance into a program… In general, we pray that things will go our way. But when I read what the Apostle Paul prayed for the church members in his epistles, I see very different kinds of prayers.

I’m sure there were needy people in those churches. People who were oppressed, poor, persecuted, sick. People with marital problems, financial problems, etc, etc. Yet, Paul prays this way: “… asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him.” Col 1:10 

Paul prayed for healing. We know this. He prayed for deliverance from physical suffering and persecution. But more than that, he prayed that the church members will know God and His love and grace. More important than the physical and the immediate, were the spiritual and permanent. And if what’s physical and immediate are vetoed in order for the spiritual and permanent to be accomplished, then so be it.

This is reflected in Paul’s own prayers to be delivered from a thorn on the flesh. He prayed three times to be delivered and each time the answer was the same – “My grace is sufficient for you.” In other words, God is allowing something bad physically, in order to do him some spiritual good.

I want you and I to get to the place where we would pray like this for one another. What’s really important to us is not the mere physical, but the spiritual. Not what’s immediate, but what’s permanent…

Be more than an animal. Animals only seek after physical things…

PH