Do you pray big prayers, or do you limit your prayers by what you think is possible?

Mark 11:24

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Little Prayers Equal Little Answers

There was the story of a man–whether it was true or not–who prayed to get out of jail. He told the prison chaplain that he repented of his crime. The very next week, he was released early. Then he prayed for a job, and being a former convicted criminal, that’s no small thing to pray for, but he got a job the following week. He was becoming convinced that prayer worked, so he prayed that he might come into a lot of money, and that very next week, guess what. He did, but it was only because he won a game of Monopoly. I can’t even remember if it was true or not, but maybe this man should have prayed more specifically. God loves it when we trust Him to pray big prayers and not limit our prayers by what we think is possible. Jesus said that whatever we ask for in faith (Matt. 21:22), we will receive, that is if it’s good for us and according to God’s will. God will never answer a prayer that is contrary to His will. The point is, when praying big prayers for what seems impossible, pray that it’s His will and that the name in which you pray, that is Jesus Christ, will be glorified by the answer because God is always interested in glorifying Jesus’ name (John 14:13-14). That’s a promise!

Big Storm, Big Answer

When the disciples were caught in what they thought was a life-threatening storm, they cried out for Jesus to save them. Where was Jesus? He was sleeping in the boat (Matt. 8:24). They woke Him immediately and asked Him to save them, as they were drowning (Matt. 8:25). Was that a prayer for help against an impossible situation? Humanly speaking, yes, and by their asking Jesus for help, that was really a prayer to God. But were they really going to drown while Jesus was asleep in the boat? Not possible. Jesus rebuked the disciples before He rebuked the storm, and both were stilled (Matt. 8:26-27). The men were amazed, but should they have been? No. Big storms are nothing to a God Who is bigger, and the Creator is supreme ruler over His creation, so we shouldn’t ever limit our prayers by what seems impossible to us, for with God, nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37).

Limiting the Unlimited

The prayer of Jabez asked for his territory to be enlarged and that God’s hand would be upon him to be free from pain (1 Chron. 4:10), that the barren Hannah would have a child and ended up with several (1 Sam. 2:1-10), that God would strengthen Samson to do the miraculous and destroy many of Israel’s enemies, (Judges 16:28), that the leper might be cleansed (Matt. 8:2), that Jonah would be delivered from the belly of the great fish and certain death (Jonah 2:1-9), that the thief on the cross could enter paradise in the last hours of his life (Luke 23:42), and that King Asa, who faced impossible odds during a battle, might be delivered from certain death (2 Chron. 14:11). These men and women never limited their prayers because they believed in a God Who has unlimited power. So my question to you is one that I must also ask myself: Do I pray big prayers, or do I limit my prayers by only what I think is possible? When Joshua prayed that the sun would stand still so that the Amorites might be conquered, he must have realized he was asking the impossible, but God is not limited by the impossible–it is only we who limit our prayers.

A Closing Prayer

Great, righteous God in heaven, You alone control everything in the universe, and I know that nothing is too hard for You. Please help me to trust You in praying for the little things and the things that I think are impossible because You are always bigger than any problem I could ever have. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Amen