It seems that with each passing year of my life, I realize just how many needs I have that only the Lord can provide and fulfill. Despite this realization, I am forced to wonder why it is that so often, I struggle to just come right out and ask Him specifically for what it is that I so desperately need. 

It’s not as if He doesn’t already know. But as is the case in every aspect of our relationship with God, our intimacy with Him is affected greatly by the level of honesty and openness with which we speak to Him. 

I would never walk into my doctor’s office and simply say, “I’m sick,” and then leave her to deduce my symptoms. Likewise, I cannot recall a time I have visited a restaurant and simply told the waiter, “I’d like dinner,” leaving it to him to figure out what I would like to eat that evening. Would I walk into a department store, head straight to a dressing room, and then ask a sales associate to bring me some things to try on assuming she’d know what style and size were correct for me? I hardly think so.   

So why is it that so often, this is exactly the way we approach God when we enter our prayer closets? Why do we address our needs to Him in some generalized and generic way? Unlike the waiter, doctor, or sales associate, God does in fact know the heart and specific details of those prayers, even when we don’t bring those details to Him. But how much more glory does God receive when we ask and address Him with the specific elements of our needs, and He provides those very things. 

By praying specifically, we open the door for others to see God’s concern for even the smallest details and we remind ourselves of the importance of those details to Him in our own lives as well.   

Just as God never neglects a single request of one of His children, so we should never neglect the opportunity to ask and be answered; seek and find; to knock and be ushered into an open door. In doing this, we will also allow ourselves and others to acknowledge and marvel at God’s goodness and glory. 

—Emily A. Vermilya 

“`Lord, teach us to pray…’” (Luke 11:1a NIV).