by jimwalton » Thu Jul 10, 2014 3:52 pm
I would expect that the things I say are in agreement with what the Bible teaches. The Bible for sure encourages us to ask for stuff, but that's not what prayer is primarily for. There are also lots of texts where people pray prayers of worship, of repentance, where they pray in meditation, where they express gratitude, fear, and doubt. You'll even notice that the Lord's Prayer (Mt. 6.9-13) only has a few requests: Please give us food. Then there are things like "forgive me for the bad stuff I've done," and "help me be strong against the temptation to do things that are wrong." These are mostly requests about our inner lives, as are requests like Philippians 1.9-11: "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure 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." That's a very different kind of request than "Help me do well or my test," or "help Aunt Mabel get better." Not that we're not allowed to ask that stuff, but we need to learn about prayer from what the Bible says about it.