My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit–not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength–that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything, you know, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Ephesians 3:14-20, The Message
How great is this?
Prayer does not always come easily, and sometimes I seek to pray for those I care about, feeling as though my prayers are feeble. “Please help them do this…”; “Please give us this…”; “Please do this and this and this…”
I read this prayer that Paul offered up to God over his fellow believers in Ephesus, and I get it. It is simple. He asks for those he cares about to be strengthened by Christ, to take in the fullness of Christ’s extravagant love for us, and to recognize how immeasurably God can work. That’s it. He pleads for them to see Jesus, to know His power, and to be filled to the brim with it. I don’t always know the right things to pray, nor do I think there is wrong way to pray when we’re talking to our God. But think of the power and love we speak over those we care for when we pray for them to be simply blanketed and overwhelmed by Christ’s love!
It’s true what Paul says: God can do anything. He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
JANELLE DELAGRANGE 