Reading: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”—Ephesians 3:20

One of the greatest obstacles in prayer is losing heart and hope in the efficacy of it. Some of the reasons we lose hope in prayer include thinking that our prayers seem to go unanswered or perhaps that the problems we face are too big and complex.

When we lose hope in prayer we become stoically content with a state of comparative emptiness. What is it to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man, to know Christ’s constant presence in our hearts by faith, to be able to comprehend the dimensions, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, and to be filled with all the fullness of God? Such experiences may seem visionary and impossible.

Likewise, from time to time when we come to pray over one matter or another we may be tempted to suppose that the thing we are praying for is beyond the realm of possibility. Sometimes when we pray we get so lost in our problems and the greatness of what we ask that we lose sight of Him to whom our supplications are directed.

Could it be that the Spirit recorded this last phrase to remind us that no matter how great our need is, God’s resources are unlimited: “unto him that is able.”

Bring great petitions before God and then by faith look away from your request to behold Him to whom the request is directed—“unto him that is able.”

“The greatest single distinguishing feature of the omnipotence of God is that our imagination gets lost thinking about it.”—Blaise Pascal