God is Able

…more than all we ask or imagine….

Ephesians 3:20 NIV

Bits of my tattered prayer journal’s cover stick to my hands after holding it. The yellowed pages identify needs of those dearest to me. It also contains various prayers I turn to when my own words fail to express my heart.

None of these prayers, though, compares to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian Christians. It challenges me to reframe my requests as well as my expectations when I pray:

…I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…. (Ephesians 3:17b-20).

I, too, desire to be rooted and established in God’s love and to grasp His limitless love for me—so that I might be filled to the top with God’s fullness. My heart then yields to the wonder of God’s power in Paul’s closing benediction—a power able to do far more than I could ask or imagine.

Father, teach me to pray like Paul, immersed in the wonder of Your love and the passionate desire for others to know this love. Thank You for the gift of Paul’s prayer to remind me that You are able to do far more than I can imagine. Because of Jesus’ that passes my understanding I pray, Amen.

Linda Lesniewski