I never assume I know what the new prayer need before me requires. If someone asks me, “Pray that my mother and my father reconcile,” I don’t simply start praying that. For one thing, I do not know with any sort of certainty that reconciliation is what God is doing in this moment. It may well be the will of God that her parents reconcile, but it may also be that first he wants to address something in their character. God doesn’t just put Band-Aids on things; it would be far more like him to first deal with the sin that was poisoning the marriage, and then bring about reconciliation.

I want to live and pray like God’s intimate ally, so I turn my gaze toward God and ask, What do you want me to pray for her mother and father? Show me what to pray. Those prayers are far more effective because they are aligned with his will. They are aligned with what he is doing in the situation at this particular moment.

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