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, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21
The End of a Prayer
These two verses are the end of a prayer, and it helps to know what Paul asked for before you read how he finishes it. He's been praying since verse 14. He prayed that they'd be strengthened with power through the Spirit in their inner being, that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith, and that they'd have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is. He even prayed that they would know a love that goes past knowing.
That's already an enormous prayer, and then Paul says God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
Notice where he puts the measure, because it isn't our asking and it isn't our imagining. It's "according to his power that is at work within us," in the present tense, and Paul is writing this from a prison cell to a church he isn't free to visit. He says the power is at work right now, inside ordinary people, while the letter is being read out to them.
Then he sends the glory to two places, and one of them should surprise us. Glory to God in Christ Jesus, of course. And glory to God in the church, which is us, the actual gathered people, named in the same breath as Jesus himself.
Ask Past the Edge
Asking past the edge of what we can picture feels presumptuous, so most of us never try it and we pray the trimmed version instead. We work out what seems reasonable, subtract whatever we think we can live without, and ask for the remainder. Then we call that small ask humility.
You can pray for what you actually want, instead of the version you've already cut down to a size that seems fair to you. You can ask God for the marriage to be good again, rather than asking only for the patience to survive it. You can ask him to heal your friend, plainly and in those words, and then keep asking him. You can pray for your kid's heart and not only for their behavior.
That isn't presumption, because Paul has already told you where the ceiling is, and the ceiling is God's power rather than your nerve. It stands well above the largest answer you were able to picture. Your imagination was never the limit, and it was never anywhere close to it.
This cuts against what most of us learned somewhere along the way, that a small prayer is a safe prayer. Paul doesn't treat it that way at all, and he takes the smallness of our asking as one more reason to praise God, because God goes past it anyway.
Asking big isn't the same as controlling the answer. As A.J. Swoboda wrote in The Gift of Thorns, we usually only count a prayer as answered when it worked out the way we wanted it to, and Gethsemane says otherwise, because Jesus prayed there and the answer was no. "There is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. Sometimes God answers with a yes; other times with a no. Sometimes the answer is 'later.'" So ask past what you can picture, and then let God answer as God. The size of the ask is your part.
We've been here before from two other directions, in When You Don't Know What to Pray and in Ask for Wisdom. Paul is adding the ceiling to both of them.
Take one prayer you've been praying in its trimmed-down form and pray the whole one this week. Bring God the actual request, the one you've been a little embarrassed to make, and then leave the answering to him, which has always been his part.
Prayer
Father, we thank you that you're able to do immeasurably more than we ask or even imagine. Forgive us for the prayers we made small before we ever brought them to you, and help us to ask you for what we want and to trust you with the answer. Thank you that your power is at work in us right now, and not only in the people we read about. Be glorified in your church and in Christ Jesus, today and in every generation after us. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.