So Many Good Choices
I am no stranger to the phenomenon referred to as “paralysis by analysis”. Perhaps you are well acquainted yourself. Perhaps you too have sat at home on a perfectly good day with all the time in the world and a stunning lack of obligations or commitments and promptly wasted the day away because you didn’t know where to begin with your time. A wide open field of possibilities can seem like a major blessing, but without the tools to work that field, it stands intimidating and often lays fallow.
No doubt, we who belong to the family of God are all familiar with this phenomenon even if we would not admit it. I can sum that familiarity up with one question: “What should I pray for?” The fact that we can talk with God at any point from anywhere about anything is a life-changing grace, but I am sure we’ve all experienced not knowing where to begin. It is tempting, even, to religiously pray through lists and prayer models to feel like we are “getting somewhere”, but soon we realize that prayer is not a checklist but rather a way to experience the relationship we have with God. Somehow, we need a jolt to our prayer lives that helps us put aside the spiritual purchase orders and instead leads us into a holy conversation with God.
I sometimes find big, overarching ideas to be helpful when processing specifics. When we struggle to find things to pray about, it can be helpful to turn to one simple principle: Pray for what is good.
What Is “Good”?
“Good” can be a hard concept to define. If you were to try, it would probably feel like defining the number two to somebody who can’t count or the color blue to somebody who can’t see. We know that “good” is a desirable thing and that everybody wants good things rather than bad things. We have certain concepts of good written into our persons as image-bearers of God, in fact. What we don’t innately have, though, is a true understanding of good.
Jesus of Nazareth was approached with the subject of good when he dealt with the rich young man. “And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone’” (Mark 10:18). If God alone is the standard of good, then any truly good thing we can find in this world is defined that way based on its relation to God and how it aligns with His purposes.
Perhaps the clearest way to think about true good in this respect is to look back at the very beginning. As God made Creation, He called each part “good” as He completed it (Genesis 1:4, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, 1:31). God created everything for a purpose whether it was to establish order or to sustain life, and we could even go so far as to say that everything He placed in Creation, up to and including mankind, was meant to reflect some aspect of Himself. Reflecting the nature of a good and perfect Creator and being effective to bring about the will of that good and perfect Creator are exactly how He defined “good” in the beginning. Interestingly enough, you may have also heard this sort of thing called “bringing glory to God”, and therein lies the rub. In a nutshell, bringing glory to God our Creator – in as many senses as possible – is what it means for good to be done.
How Can We Identify What Is Good?
How natural it is to reel when we are faced with such concepts. We want our own glory, and we come to think that giving glory to God will leave us with nothing and will be anything but joyous, wondrous, and even good.
As a matter of first principles, we need to remember that this aversion to the glory of God is actually a natural response, even as unfortunate as that might be. It is natural because of our sinful nature: “For I know nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (Romans 7:18). On our own, we cannot hope to be free to seek and to live for the glory of God, and by proxy, then, we cannot hope to find what is good. Stuck in a cycle of sin and spiritual blindness, many wander seeking a good they cannot find on their own, crying out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)
We children of God know the answer to this question, of course: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The old, sinful person passes away because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, and a new, living person is born and placed in a right relationship with God in its place. Being in that relationship is the only way we can truly see God and live in His will.
Being able to see God because we are reconciled to Him means that we can begin to see those things that are good. To see God’s qualities and character shining through in our lives and the lives of those around us brings Him glory and is good. The question we can ask ourselves, then, after having experienced God ourselves, is whether we can see His glory peeking through any of the situations we encounter. If we can’t see it, how might we begin to see it? For some concrete examples, the fruit of the Spirit growing in spite of someone’s circumstances is good. Finding rest in the Lord in times of trial is good. Enjoying the wonderful graces He gives us on a daily basis where we hadn’t seen them before is good. Provision for our needs even when we don’t deserve it is good. Sending out workers for God’s will is good. Perhaps most joyously, God’s glory is displayed in His grace when He restores a lost sinner. Truly, that is good.
We tend not to be able to see what is truly good because we’re not focusing on God. The only hope we have to see differently rests in Christ and the reconciliation, restoration, and regeneration He offers us. This, undoubtedly, is the best place to start on our journey to identify what is good and then to pray for it.
How Can We Pray For What Is Good?
Once we can identify what is good, we will undoubtedly begin to recognize a shocking lack of it in our fallen world. However, we know that God intends to do good and to make His glory known. It might sound strange, but the best way we can pray for good in our lives and in the world around us is to do so with great assurance. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).
God knows our problems. He knows the best way to bring about His glory and create ultimate good in spite of them. Thinking about goodness in terms of God and His glory helps us to understand the difference between praying for a good thing and praying for the good that God wants to do in the world. It is not a limiting philosophy but a freeing one, and it leads us to the realization that, when it comes to what to pray for, there are so many good choices. There are many who don’t know Christ, so we can pray fervently that they would know Him. There are many who are hurting, so we can pray persistently that God would be their strength. There are many things to be thankful for, so we can pray constantly that our hearts would overflow with gratitude. The list goes on and on.
A Wide Open Field Of Possibilities
We should not worry about what to pray, even when it is easy to wonder if God will stop listening if we pray for the wrong things. If a child asks his father for something, but his father doesn’t give it to him, does that mean the father does not want his child to ask for anything anymore? Quite on the contrary, the father waits with bated breath for the next request, hoping it is something he can fulfill. As the child keeps asking and interacting with his father and focusing on him, he will begin to learn the good the father wants to do in his life. This is the same process we will experience as we seek God and yearn for good to be done through our prayers. If God expected you to be perfect at the onset, He would have made you that way to begin with. Prayer won’t ever be perfect, but it will always be worth it.
So pray for what is good. Be open to the leading of the Spirit and God’s people as they teach you good things to pray for. Learn what it means to have this conversation with God on a regular basis. Be assured that God will do much with your prayers. If you do not grow weary in this pursuit, you just might be surprised what happens.
Resources:
Others have taken the task of compiling lists of good things that we can all pray for, if you find that
specific examples will help. A few of those lists have been provided here for reference:
https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-should-we-pray-for
https://www.nationaldayofprayer.org/prayforamerica
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-should-i-pray-for
https://www.cru.org/us/en/train-and-grow/spiritual-growth/prayer/what-to-pray-for.html
https://www.gotquestions.org/types-of-prayer.html