Imagine That

A group of us at work recently took an hour to intercede for one another. Using Paul's prayer in Eph. 3:14-21, we asked God to fill each of our team members with a fresh supply of His strength, power, and love to do their jobs. Our prayer time was winding down–or so I thought–when the Holy Spirit whispered to me, What about the rest of verse 20?

I glanced at the Scripture in front of me to see what He might mean. The verse read, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us."

You did a good job of asking, but what about imagining? the Holy Spirit gently challenged.

Sounds risky, was my first thought. But after a moment's hesitation I decided, Hey, if God wants to do more than all we can imagine, that's an offer too good to pass up. So I invited the group to pray aloud their dreams for how they would like to see God work in our company.

One by one, my friends and I prayed, "God, we imagine You doing . . . " I was amazed at how extravagant our requests became. We asked for prayer ministries to flourish in every church represented by our readers. We asked God to fill every person in our company "to the measure of all the fullness of God" in ways that would overflow into the products we publish. We prayed for a profitable end to the fiscal year. We even prayed that one day our materials would be translated into Mandarin and distributed in China! By the time we finished, everyone in the room seemed to feel lighter and more hopeful.

What about you? Are there things you hesitate to ask God for because they're so big you can only dream them? Why not take Him up on His offer to exceed our expectations? Then we'll all get to celebrate when God starts doing His immeasurably-more stuff. Imagine that!

Kilde: Cynthia Bezek