Why God Wants Us to Ask From Him

I gave myself a week of silence.

I am always so quick to apply truths that I've learned to other people first, before seriously examining myself. And I found this to be a problem, so I stopped myself from posting here for a week.

The one who is more godly is not the one who needs less struggle against sin than the ungodly; he is the one who struggles the hardest and acts most radically.


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PETITION TO THE GLORY OF GOD

God's purpose in all He does is to let His glory shine.

How does prayer meet that end?

We know that prayer may include giving thanks and praise. That's fairly obvious, of course, as to how it gives glory to God. What then, about the command for petition?

A common question: why do we need to pray for things to happen if what's going to happen is going to happen anyway? We know that to pray for God to do something is not to make Him do something that He wasn't going to do in the first place. It's not to bend the hand of God.

And yet, we are told:

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
(James 4:2)

So God withholds some things from us simply because we don't ask for it. Why? Is it because God hasn't considered what we want/need until we ask Him directly?

No, this has more to do with us.

God wants us to ask from Him so that when we receive His blessing, we know that it's from Him. Men are prideful and ungrateful creatures, and naturally take God for granted.

God wants us to depend wholly on Him, so that when we receive anything, we would not give credit to our own ability or even our good fortune. And a way that He lets us depend on Him is through petition in prayer. We are pushed to the limits of our human abilities, and we find that we are helpless unless God helps us. We ask, He gives us, and we recognize that it is He who gives.

Glory be to the Father in heaven whom we pray to, who hears us.

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, 
    forever. 
Amen.
(Matthew 6:9-13)