I was looking at some images of open spaces for another project and I got caught in a bit of a rabbit hole, where the more images I saw the more I wanted to see. I kept scrolling and scrolling through pictures of vast, open spaces - some had mountains, others had rivers and waterfalls and others were fields that seemed to keep going and going. And for some reason my mind settled on prayer. There was something about these vast landscapes that made me think of how I approach God with my prayers and if I am praying big enough prayers.
I don’t think that I am.
I allow myself to see God through the lens of what I understand to be possible… maybe a tiny bit further than that but not much. I allow what I understand of my world and its surrounding to dictate to me what is in the realm of possibility for my God. The same God who formed the world I see around me. The God who breathed breath into molded dust and man became a living being (Genesis 2:7). Can you breathe air into dust and create life? I can’t. So if God can do that, how could I ever pray anything that is out of His ability to accomplish? Why am I only praying prayers for things I can imagine possible to a God that can do the impossible?
Jabez prayed “ Bless me and expand my territory” and he prayed that unashamed and unencumbered. Oh that we as God’s people would develop such an intimacy with God, such a connection to His heart that we would pray prayers of an expanded territory, not for our glory but so that the world through us would be blessed.
by Kalesha Peters
