Present Your Requests to God (PrayerLife)

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Part of my prayer life is requesting of God. God is a giving God. God loves to give good things to his people whose lives are situated within his kingdom and saturated by his Spirit.

I'm not imposing on God by bringing requests to him. Paul wrote to the Philippians that they are to "rejoice in the Lord always... Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. (Phil. 4:4-6)

This asking-thing isn't just for little kids. "Asking" isn't some lowly, beggarly form of prayer. Theologian Stanley Grenz writes: "The mature spiritual person never outgrows the need to bring requests to God." (Grenz, Prayer: The Cry for the Kingdom, 25)

Here are some ways I ask of God:

• I ask God to intervene in troubling circumstances.
• I ask God to provide for my needs, and those of my family and friends and others. I ask God "for divine provision in the midst of brokenness and insufficiency of the present." (Grenz, 25)
• I ask God for the coming of the kingdom into the present.

Ask and receive, right?