Dear friends,

At a retreat in 2007, I found myself in line for lunch behind Dallas Willard. I seized the opportunity:

Dallas, how does prayer work? I mean specifically the asking part. God knows better than us what we need. Is God waiting with arms crossed until we ask for something that’s up to Divine standards, then gives us what he had already planned on giving? I don’t get it.

Like any great teacher, Dallas answered my question with a question.

What kind of universe would God create where prayer makes a genuine difference?

I’m sure he said more but that question is all I remember. It was enough. I’ve been chewing on it for the last 16 years. 

This email is too small a vehicle to explore even an acre of the vast country of petitionary prayer. But I will say this: prayer is relational. 

God doesn’t withhold from us to be cruel, or wait to answer until our hearts and requests are flawless. In fact, ​“withholding” is probably the wrong word altogether. The process of asking and receiving (or not receiving) is a unique way to relate to the Father as a child and to Jesus as a friend, a way to cooperate with the promptings of the Spirit in bringing about good in the world.

The universe God chose to make is one where God frequently, if not primarily, works through prayer. (John Wesley went so far as to say that God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.) 

God’s power flows through our prayer like electricity through a wire. Why? God certainly doesn’t need us. The best I can figure is that God likes doing stuff together. 

Humans are so prone to selfishness and stupidity that we might think it best to stop praying — or at least to stop asking for things — until our motives are pure. But the truth is that ​“petitions…can only be purified by petition.” (That quote from P. T. Forsyth is in this helpful excerpt from Richard Foster’s book, Prayer.)

You see this ​“petitionary purification” happening in Jesus’ disciples. James and John, good ol’ sons of thunder as they were, approach Jesus with outrageous boldness in Mark 10: 

“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

I would’ve stopped them right there. Whoa, partners. Who’s in charge here.

But not Jesus. He says to ask on, so they proceed with their blush-worthy request: ​“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

They don’t know what they’re asking. Jesus tells them as much. But rather than dismissing or shaming them, he engages them in a conversation they likely didn’t grasp for years (the gist: they’d suffer like him). Then he redirects them: ​“Whoever would be first among you must be servant of all.” 

Did you catch that? Their tainted request resulted in Jesus revealing more of his heart to them. 

As time went on, I’m sure the disciples’ requests aligned more and more with God’s heart. But they didn’t wait to ask until they had it all right. Neither should we.