Embrace Prayer: It Is About Asking
The Final Post of the Series
Embracing prayer is a lifelong pursuit, practice, and gift. As we embrace prayer, we move beyond a “prayer life,” where we compartmentalize our moments of prayer from all the other segments of our busy lives. And we step into a “life of prayer,” which is all-encompassing1 – like syrup that flows into all the pockets of a waffle. And it is just as sweet.
While Mark’s admonishment that prayer isn’t all asking remains a true and guiding principle for us, a life of prayer certainly will be filled with opportunities to ask – for ourselves and for others (Mark 11:24 MSG). This is priestly work (1 Peter 2:9)! And we desire to carry it out with faithfulness and holy intention. So it is with faith that we seek Scripture and Spirit for clarifying truths about this sacred work of prayer.
What Prayer Is Not
Despite the enthusiastic attempts of the Prosperity Gospel-ites to convince us that prayer is our means to a very fruitful life in this world, prayer doesn’t function like a genie in a bottle. We don’t say magic words to have our wishes granted.
So, if we read Scriptures that exhort us to ask and “believe [we] have received it” with the expectation of getting everything on our list, we misinterpret the heart of prayer (Mark 11:24).
It’s easy to pull verses, like this one in Mark, out of its context and call it truth. Such a practice is lethal to our faith because it reveals only a portion of what is being taught, and it sets us up for disappointment and a distrust of God. Instead, we’re to read verses within the full scope of Scripture.
For instance, this Mark verse about praying our requests is tucked into the context of Jesus angrily overturning the market tables at the Temple because the people had turned God’s “house of prayer” into a “den of thieves” (v.17). Upon seeing a fig tree the next morning, shriveled and dead because He’d spoken it so, Jesus tells His disciples they should have faith when they pray – and mountains can be moved (vv.20-23, emphasis mine).
These two scenes illustrate the heart of prayer by teaching us to pray with faith for what God desires. Not materialism, not legalism. But for God’s kingdom and purposes. Jesus is not giving over a secret formula for getting what we want; He is shifting the prayer paradigm for His followers.
Prayer, a Portal of Faith
During another lesson on prayer, Jesus tells His disciples to ‘ask, seek, and knock’ because God has everything they need to build and strengthen His people (Matthew 7:7). In other words, Jesus points us to prayer as a “portal of faith” – a means of moving toward God with our needs that becomes a way of building our faith in Him!2
James echoes Jesus’ teaching then helps us identify our propensity to do the exact opposite:
“Pray to the Father. He loves to help. …Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who ‘worry their prayers’ are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way…” (James 1:5-8 MSG).
JD Walt was the first person I heard talk about this idea of worrying our prayers.1 And he helped me grasp how easy it is to fall into the spiral of worry that we tend to call prayer. For instance, we pick up a current concern – the thing that keeps us up at night – and we bring it to God (yay!). But instead of naming it and giving it to Him, we keep saying over and over how worried we are about it. We put our whole body into ‘kneeding’ this worry like a lump of yeasty dough, rolling it over on every side to pound it some more – but never putting it in the oven to bake.
“Worrying our prayers” is a facsimile of prayer. We’ve turned to the right Person without actually giving Him the problem. We’ve moved toward God but not in faith. We’ve asked but failed to believe that He is capable and compassionate. We’ve glanced His way but without any actual trust.
After a long season of building my trust in God, I hit a big pothole in life that rattled me to my core. And I fell into the old habit of worrying my prayers. Day after day, I restated the problem; I reiterated my fear; I rehearsed all the ways things could go wrong – and called it prayer. One day as I reentered the same cycle, the Spirit stopped me with these simple words: I thought you were going to trust Me.
What holy Truth! I didn’t have to be tossed around by those wind-whipped waves of doubt and fear. This revelation marked the moment I finally laid my fears at the Father’s feet. As a result, my prayers changed, transforming into a portal of faith as I spoke to God with words of hope and trust, believing God for who He is.2 By faith, I cast my anxiety on God and was no longer held captive by worry.1
Prayer, a Call
Eugene Peterson paraphrased the famous passage about prayer in Philippians four with words that pick up this same theme – and issue a call:
“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness…will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life” (Philippians 4:6-7 MSG).
Do you hear the call to prayer? “…In everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (v.6 CSB).
Every single follower of Jesus is called to pray – to petition God for our needs. There’s no qualifying who prays, as if only those who are gifted or sound good should pray; there’s no hidden clause that releases anyone who feels uncomfortable from praying. In fact, Paul says that we should never stop praying…“for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18).
Prayer, a Pathway
One more shift we can make toward a fuller understanding and practice of prayer is to recognize that when we ask God for something, we are not initiating the work of God. We aren’t somehow moving God into action – because God is always at work.3 Rather, we are empowered to see prayer as “the most ready (if not the only) pathway into the activity of God.”3
God is already at work, and He has extended to us a permanent invitation to join Him in that work here in the world – and we get there by way of prayer.
So, instead of worrying our prayers or trying to cajole or manipulate God into doing what we think is best, we lay our requests at His feet, then take a step back, giving the Holy Spirit room to speak or show, to lead or level us with truth. We lift our eyes to the heavenlies and ask God to show us how to play a part in the holy work He is already doing.
The Real Power Source
Prayer in and of itself is not the power source for change or miracles or hope. We don’t utter a word and power suddenly releases into the universe. “God alone has power. And somehow, faith mysteriously unlocks and unleashes the power of God on earth.”2
The more we lean into prayer as a pathway into the activity of God, the more we’ll look to God as the source of power – not us or our words.
Yet, words matter, which is why we pray His Word, inviting the Holy Spirit to lead us in our prayers. And as we do, we’ll be taken into depths beyond our ability to fathom; we’ll encounter power far and above anything in the natural world.
We’ll also discover a new level of power when we come together with other believers to pray. Unified by God’s Word and Spirit, believers who pray as one have Jesus in their presence and the God of All Power attuned to their hearts (Matthew 18:19-20).
Aligning Hearts and Releasing Outcomes
Jesus tells us to persist in our asking with faith (Luke 18:1-8). John teaches that when we approach God, He will listen – and that we’re to pray in God’s will (1 John 5:14). Both teachers tell us that when we do, we will have what we ask for (Matthew 7:7; 1 John 5:15).
Yet, to build lives of prayer, to become faithful people of prayer, we must grapple with the reality of unanswered prayer.4
Which is why we begin with praying those Jesus Prayers – because they are prayers that keep us humble and help us go to God with good and right motives. Jesus’ prayers make us bold enough to move from praying to God to praying for God, and they remind us to lay down our will for God’s.
And there’s something really important that happens as we die to self as we pray – we begin to align our hearts and minds with God’s. His Word molds us. His love motivates us. Such humility helps us to remember we don’t see the whole picture – but God does. And all of this helps us to abide in Him (John 15:7).
Then, as our hearts and prayers align with the Father, so will our desire to control the outcomes. There’s much mystery in the way God responds to our requests. We don’t always get what we ask for – at least not in the way we imagined. We often won’t understand His silence or His ‘no’, but with our hearts beating in rhythm with His own, we are better able to live “in the mystery of His divine wisdom.”5
A life of prayer embraces the fact that often the reward of praying is not instant gratification of answers we desire. Most often prayer shapes us slowly as we grow stronger in faith and the fruit of the Spirit.5
And when we’re molded in such a way, we can trust that God is at work even when we can’t see it. We can believe that “God always offers us His presence even when He doesn’t offer us His power.”5
Asking for Self and Others
But that doesn’t mean God won’t unleash His power and answer prayers! We still ask! With faith and confidence we PRAY! Because when Jesus died for us, He made a way for us to enter the Most Holy Place (Hebrews 10:19-20). Anointed by Christ’s blood and filled with the Holy Spirit, we can boldly…
step into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting Him (v.22).
hold to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise (v.23).
pray for our own hearts and minds, our bodies and spirits.
pray for others – for all they feel and face.
ask for anything in Jesus’ name – and know our joy will be full (John 16:24).
Here’s another way of saying it: “Prayer means confident movement into the Most Holy Place in this new and living way where new things can happen.”6
Friends, we meet here each week because we desire to cultivate lives of faith that flourish in Christ and for Christ. In this season, we’ve discovered prayer is a pathway into that life of flourishing – because as we surrender our lives of prayer to Christ, we are transformed. We begin to live like Him. And pray like Him.
So we embrace this life of prayer. We accept the invitation Jesus has handed us with His own nail-scarred hands, ushering us into a partnership with Him in the work He is already doing, into the power of the Holy Spirit, and into a network of other praying believers who stand with us in this holy calling.
We plant ourselves in His love and give space for our faith to grow deep roots. We establish ourselves in the truth of who God is and allow His words to do a work in us. We trust God with the details and the outcomes, all the while becoming vessels of His love to be poured out in this world.
Lord, keep teaching us to pray.
Father God, we yield all our cares and anxieties to You today. Devoting our lives afresh to your purpose, we put our trust and hope in You, knowing that, in your great love, though the path may be narrow, your way is the one which leads to joy and life. Lord Jesus, thank You for teaching us so much about this pathway called prayer. We ask that You would continue to mold us into mighty praying people for your kingdom’s purposes. Holy Spirit, come. Fill us with your presence in such a way that we are moved to establish ourselves in the Word of God, trusting in His will and outcomes. Anchor us in faith that believes wholeheartedly in the power of God even as we surrender our need to understand His will and ways – which are always higher than our own. Encourage us to keep praying, to keep asking and believing that as we align our hearts and minds with Christ’s, the words we speak matter. Help us to embrace our lives of prayer in such a way that can experience God’s presence and power for the good of God’s kingdom, as well as for our own lives and the lives of those around us. We desire to pray as Jesus taught us – with hope and faith and joy! Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
(inspired by Lectio365 prayer on 5/21/25; Luke 11:1-4; Proverbs 3:5-6; Colossians 2:7; Isaiah 55:9; Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Colossians 1:9-11; Ephesians 3:20-21)PS — Next week we begin our summer series, Embrace Worship, in which we’ll explore many facets of worship as we seek to answer the question, Why worship? We’ll lay altars and dig deep wells as we move through the Bible looking at all the purposes and ways of worship. Here’s a hint: Just as prayer is not all about asking, worship isn’t all about singing. And yet, they are!! 🙂 Invite someone to join us!
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
1 – From JD Walt in Wake Up Call 6/21/18, which is duplicated in his book, Right Here, Right Now,^ pp.113-116. Here is another of his quotes from the same post that says more about worrying our prayers and trusting God: “I love the way the Apostle Peter, who carried his fair share of anxiety, instructs us, ‘Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you’ (1 Peter 5:7). There is a big difference between ‘worrying our prayers’ and ‘praying our anxieties’. The former skirts the real honest truth. The latter trusts enough to keep it real.”
2 – From JD Walt in the introduction to his Right Here, Right Now book, p.xvii
3 – From JD Walt in the same book, p.26
4 – I’d love to recommend Pete Greig’s book, God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer.^ Maybe it’s one we do here together one day in the future…
5 – These are quotes by John Mark Comer and Tyler Staton on episode 2 of Practicing the Way podcast. What a conversation they have about being with Jesus!!
6 – One last quote from JD Walt’s series on prayer, on 6/13/18 (Right Here, Right Now book, p.92). I cannot recommend this book more! It’s one I return to frequently.
This is the final week of our Embrace Prayer series. But, never fear — the playlist for Embrace Prayer will always be a click away in my Spotify account. As are all my playlists. 😉 Next week, we’ll start a new series and have a new summer playlist!!
Each Wednesday I upload a “Teacup” teaching video that carries on the topic here. You can find all the videos on my Facebook Author Page, Instagram, and YouTube.
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My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes of those who have subscribed on my website, and I post them on Substack — usually within the first week of the month. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike. This Lent, we’ve put our focus on the rhythm of prayer.
We continue building a prayer library in our Prayer Bibles this week by highlighting and tabbing Philippians 4:6-7. It’s a prayer we can revisit anytime we’re tempted to worry our prayers. Now, this passage is not phrased as a prayer, so we personalize it, telling God: “I will not worry about anything; instead, I am praying about everything. I’m here to tell You what I need and to thank You for all You have done. I pray your peace, which exceeds anything I can understand, will guard my heart and mind as I abide in Christ Jesus. Amen!!”
We’re all called to share the truths about the work of Jesus. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. Maybe, just maybe, God will even give us opportunities to pray for people He puts in our paths. I’d love to hear about it when He does!
Featured Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash. “All the Bits and Pieces” photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash.
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