A Prayer to Pray For Your Family

The Apostle Paul prayed a beautiful prayer for the Ephesians in chapter 3:14-21. I want to point out four things in this prayer. We can pray for strength, love, fullness, and a greater understanding of God’s omnipotence.

It’s not just those who are sick or discouraged that need to be strengthened, but all of us. We need to be inwardly strengthened to remain faithful. Paul’s first request is for strength, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,” (Eph 3:16).  Life has a way of crushing us with the burdens we try to carry. How many of our family and friends face overwhelming situations and need God to strengthen them?

Secondly, Paul prayed for love, “And 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, (Eph 3:17-18). Dr. Donald Barnhouse pointed out that love is intrinsic to all the fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23. He said, “Joy is love singing, peace is love resting, long-suffering is love enduring, kindness is love’s touch, goodness is love’s character, faithfulness is love’s habit, gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness, and self-control is love holding the reins.

The words Paul uses to demonstrate love are not nouns but verbs—at least fifteen. Love is more than a feeling. It is what we do. It is more than affection. It is how we treat people. We are never more like Christ than when we love in the way shows kindness.

Thirdly, Paul prays that we will be full of God “--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19). We are often full of ourselves or completely empty, but what we need is the fullness, God. God has enough to fill all of us when we ask.

Fourthly, Paul prays that we will grasp that God is omnipotent, “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,” (Eph 3:20).

Nebuchadnezzar was practically the king of the entire world, but that was not enough—he wanted to be worshipped. So he made a massive statue of himself and called all his people on his immediate payroll to bow down and worship the statue. It was all orchestrated so that it seemed like the thing to do—everybody did it except for three young men.  Everyone was to do this because if you didn’t, there would be severe consequences.

They answered the king, telling him they would not bow down to the idol. They would face the consequences of being thrown into a furnace of fire. They declared that their God was able to deliver them, but even if he didn’t, they would still be faithful and worship only Him (Daniel 3:16-17). They knew their God was able! And that made all the difference in the world.

Seeing Value Around You

When was the last time you looked for something several times in different places only to return to the first place you looked to find it in plain sight? We all do that from time to time. We overlook what we are searching for. That not only happens with things but also with people.

It is rare to see the qualities of the people around us. It is often easier to see the weaknesses of others rather than their strengths. Seeing their weaknesses impedes their progress and discourages them, while focusing on their strengths inspires them to reach higher and be what they never thought they could be. Why is it so difficult to see the value of others? It could be because we are focused on our problems. It could be because we are disinterested. Seeing what people can become is a gift—a God-given gift!

We all get stuck in life, but the people who make a difference find a way to break the monotony. The “doldrums” is a nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships would sometimes get stuck on windless waters. People also get stuck in the doldrums where life becomes too ordinary. When that happens, we will likely overlook the value of people in our lives. What is needed is for people to find a way to make their ship keep moving forward until the wind comes back. In moving our ship forward, we will create our own wind, and others will join, creating even more.

A Sotheby’s sculpture specialist, Elizabeth Wilson, was intrigued by a small bronze figure at a garden sculpture sale in England 1999. It was appraised at $2,000-$3,000 and had been sitting unnoticed in someone’s garden for nearly forty years. As she studied the statue more thoroughly, Ms. Wilson realized it was a piece from Dutch Sculptor Adriaen de Vries, who lived in the 16th century. De Vries’s casting method was rarely used by other artists because the statues could not be reproduced. Each figure was unique unto itself. Wilson had the “Juggling Man” pulled from the sale and placed in a more high-profile auction. A collector then purchased the classic bronze sculpture for $10.7 million.  This is an example of our inability to see the value of people we encounter daily. Still, when we do, amazing things can happen in those lives around us.