Ask with childlike confidence, wonder, and humility. 

“Give us this day….”

Give me! 

Can’t you hear the child you know best saying “give me!”? 

Knowing how to ask for what’s important is a key skill for life and work. Knowing how to ask your Father in Heaven for what you need is an advantage that leads to abundant life.  

One of my children is truly gifted in this area. At the age of two when iPhones were somewhat new, he could get just about any other unsuspecting person to give him their iPhone.

Here is how this worked at his older brother’s basketball games.  

“Hi, what’s your name?”

Nice lady answers, “_______” 

“Is that an iPhone?” 

“Yes it is, you cute child.”

”Do you have games on your phone?”

”Ah…yes.”

“Can I play on your phone?”

”Well of course you can.” 

At the age of 5 he was swiping them from business people on airplanes! He knew how to ask!

How to Ask for Everything 

“God promises to bring into your life astonishing, mind-numbing blessings and prosperity through prayer. God has all kinds of tremendous things that he wants to give you through prayer.”  - Tim Keller 

Jesus promises His followers multiple times, whatever you ask in my name you will receive. We have an incredible advantage! 

In His Sermon on the Mount, He teaches His followers how to pray. 

“This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'” - [.no-reftag]Matthew 6:9-10[.no-reftag]

Jesus starts with the “Who” and “Why” of prayer. He teaches us that praying to our Hallowed Father in heaven is Making the Most Powerful Connection Possible. 

The purpose of all prayer is to praise God and to align all of our life and work with His will. With that as our goal, our Father very much wants us to ask Him for things. 

Ask Confidently

“Give us today our daily bread” - [.no-reftag]Matthew 6:11[.no-reftag] 

You can ask confidently, because you are a child of God (John 1:12-13). Your Father in Heaven loves you more than you love yourself! He has a perfect track record of caring for you. Our Father has made life possible and always wants what is best for us. 

We have to ask! 

We need to ask boldly like a child who wants milk right away! God’s word tells us we have not because we do not ask God (James 4:2). Our Heavenly Father is a perfect version of any good father — He loves it when we ask Him. 

Your Father will give you what you need. We have learned as children that while we don’t always get what we want, we always get what we need.

“Petitionary prayer only works if you understand it on father child terms.” - Tim Keller 

We need to ask our Father requests with bold childlike impudence and wonder — expecting our Father to give. Just like when we were small children, our confidence was in the parents we trusted — not in our ability to ask. This is how to pray:

Ask Humbly

The truest fact that guides our life and work is that our Father is God, and we are not. Childlike confidence does not mean always being right in your request. 

Tim Keller reminds us, “As a child, you think the request and the need are identical. That’s because you’re a kid.”

Childlike confidence demands to be satisfied with the Father's good answer. There are no magic words required, but it does take a childlike desire to ask purely for what we want and expect our Father to give us what we need. 

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”- [.no-reftag]Luke 11:11-13[.no-reftag]

All of us have a long track record of our Father providing us what we need even when we asked for something that was off at the time. 

Ask Maturely

Of course, we are no longer children. Our good Father has taught us so much, we don’t think like children, or reason like children (1 Corinthians 13:11). We have grown up and matured. We have been offered complete transformational power by His Word to know His good and perfect will (Romans 12:2).

We have been called to follow Jesus and to live and work His way. In our prayers to our Father, we should always consider how to ask in His Name. 

• Who He is - starting our request with praise, adoration of God and all He has done for us

• Who we are - as His dependent children, heirs of heaven and earth, saved by grace, and called to follow His Son, Jesus

• What we need most - we know we need Jesus, that without Him — without Jesus we can do no good thing (John 15:5)

• His Kingdom come, His will be done -  We have learned that since we will inherit everything in the not very distant future, we no longer need to work for ourselves now — striving to have things our way. We now work alongside our greatest partners — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to make our life and work — even the whole earth — as it is in heaven.

Resources:

Article: Making the Most Powerful Connection Possible | Howard Graham 

Article: Receive Your Blessing, Accept Your Call | Howard Graham

Sermon: Petition Our Daily Bread | Tim Keller