Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually. Psalm 105:4
E. Stanley Jones in his book, ‘A Song of Ascents’ wrote this:
“If I throw out a boathook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me, or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will to the will of God.”
I believe this illustration clearly touches on a common error in much of our prayer life. We tend in our private and public prayers to approach God like he were a reluctant God who needs to be coaxed and chided into our self made shopping baskets to set our little worlds aright!
This is not saying our needs are not valid or in any way unreal. But can I suggest that “letting our requests be made known to God” (Phil 4:6) has become a sole fixation that has defined our prayers. We love this text, it’s truth and its promise, but at the same time we can tend to twist it to suit our selfish ego’s - of asking God for what we want! I like what Darrell L. Guder says on this:
“Prayer is not about getting what we want – the fulfillment of our will; it is about learning what God wants – the bending of our will to God’s will.”