Weekly Devotional – August 3-7 (Praying Beyond Our Limits)
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Monday: The Prayer We Already Watched God Answer
John slid into the pew beside Jane, Ben, and Beth just as the music ended. Grandma Ruth, in for the weekend, took the aisle seat and opened her Bible before the sermon even started. The pastor stepped up, read Ephesians 3:20, and asked the church to think of the most important, most impossible prayer they had ever prayed.
Ben leaned toward Beth. “That’s an easy one. Passing chemistry.”
“He means an actual prayer,” Beth whispered back.
The pastor said the answer, for most of them, was salvation: save them from His own wrath, from an eternity in hell, and pay a sin debt none of them could pay on their own. Jane felt the weight of it more than she expected. She had prayed that prayer at sixteen, in a youth camp cabin, certain of very little except that she needed saving.
“If God had said no,” the pastor said, “you would be facing that judgment right now, or already living separated from Him.” He read the verse again. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.
Grandma Ruth murmured the last word along with him. Able. Not tired, not persuaded, not required. Able.
John ran back through what God had done in answer to that one prayer. Forgiveness he hadn’t earned. A Son sent to take his place. A destination changed from hell to a kingdom with no more sin, sickness, or separation. His own debt paid, and God’s Spirit placed inside him to equip him to be holy.
“When you prayed for salvation,” the pastor said, “you were praying to a God who is able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all you asked or thought.”
Beth wrote the reference small in the corner of her bulletin, so Ben wouldn’t see it and make a comment. She had asked God for a lot of small things this year. She could not remember the last time she had asked Him for something she genuinely believed was impossible.
Ben had stopped joking. He was thinking about a prayer he had never said out loud, for a friend who had stopped believing any of this mattered.
What Scripture Says
Ephesians 3:20 says, “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.” Paul is not describing a wish. He is describing the same power that already answered the most impossible prayer any of us have prayed: the prayer for salvation. God was not required to save us, but He was able, and He did. He sent His Son to take our place, pay a debt we could not pay, and place His Spirit inside us to equip us to be holy. If God has already answered that prayer, no request we bring Him now is too large for His power.
Tuesday: Able, Not Obligated
The next point of the sermon put one word under a microscope. The pastor circled back to the same verse and told the church the key word was small: able. “Now unto Him that is ABLE,” he read again, then reminded them what it meant. It means God has the power to do it. Not that He is required to, not that He owes anyone an answer, but that He is able.
He asked the congregation to imagine two options. A medication, proven to heal exactly half the people who took it. Or a surgeon whose particular surgery healed everyone who came to him, though he did not choose to operate on every single person who asked. “Would you still go ask him?” the pastor said. “What if he sometimes told you not yet, but you were welcome to ask him again tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until he said yes?”
Ben leaned toward Beth, quieter this time. “I’d ask every day. Free surgery, guaranteed success rate. That’s not even a hard decision.”
“That’s the whole point,” Beth said, not looking up from her bulletin.
Jane thought about the prayers she had let fade away over the past year, not because she stopped believing God could answer them, but because she had stopped expecting Him to. She had treated some of her prayers like the fifty percent medicine, easy to set down when the odds felt unlikely, instead of remembering she was asking the one who had never failed to be able.
John thought about how often he prayed the safe version of a request instead of the real one, small enough that he wouldn’t be disappointed if God said no. He had been treating God’s ability like it was uncertain, when the sermon kept insisting it wasn’t. Whether God was able had never been the question. Whether they would keep asking was.
Grandma Ruth nodded slowly beside him, her pen resting on a verse she had underlined years before that morning’s sermon had even started.
The pastor closed the point by reading the verse one more time, slower. Exceeding. Abundantly. Above all we ask or think. Ben mouthed the words along with him, half surprised at himself.
What Scripture Says
Ephesians 3:20 says God is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” Able does not mean obligated. It means God has the power, whether or not He chooses to use it the way or the moment we expect. That changes how we pray. We are not approaching an uncertain treatment with even odds. We are approaching the one true source of help who has never failed to be able, and who invites us to keep asking, even when the answer is not yet.
Wednesday: What Have I Stopped Praying For?
The pastor slowed the sermon down and asked the church to be honest for a moment. Had their prayers grown bigger since they got saved, or smaller. Were they asking God for more now than they had years ago, or had they quietly stopped investing real time and energy into asking Him to fix, change, help, or deliver them from situations beyond their control.
Jane thought on the question while the pastor spoke. Her prayers this year had mostly been about logistics: a parking spot, good weather for Beth’s game, a schedule that worked out. Necessary things, but small ones. She could not remember the last time she had asked God for something that actually required Him to do exceeding, abundantly, above what she could ask or think.
The pastor moved into three places believers stop praying big. Beyond physical limitations, because that is the whole point of prayer, going to God for what we cannot do ourselves. Beyond the limits of our own understanding, because Paul said God works above what we even know to ask for. Beyond the limits of our own faith, because even when our faith says a prayer won’t matter, we are told to pray anyway and ask God to strengthen that faith while we do.
John wrote physical limitations on the edge of his bulletin, and beneath it, a name. A friend whose diagnosis he had prayed about exactly once before deciding, quietly, that it was probably too late for that kind of prayer.
Beth thought about her own faith, and how often lately she prayed with a mental asterisk attached, half expecting nothing to change. The pastor’s words landed close to home: pray anyway, and confess the doubt honestly instead of hiding it.
Ben thought about his friend again, the one who had walked away. He had told himself understanding wasn’t the problem, that he simply did not know what to pray for someone who no longer wanted anything to do with God. But that was exactly the limitation the pastor had just named. God was not limited to what Ben knew how to ask for.
Grandma Ruth reached over and tapped John’s bulletin, right where he had written the name. She did not say anything. She did not need to.
What Scripture Says
Paul told the Ephesians that God is able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all we ask or think. Our prayers are not limited to what we already understand or already believe is possible. We can pray beyond our physical limitations, because that is the purpose of prayer. We can pray beyond the limits of our understanding, because God is not confined to what we know how to ask for. We can pray beyond the limits of our own faith, bringing our doubt honestly to God and asking Him to strengthen it while we keep praying anyway.
Thursday: What Paul Actually Prayed For
Before closed the sermon, he backed up to show the church what Paul had prayed for before he ever wrote that God was able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all we ask or think. He read Ephesians 3:14 through 19 slowly: Paul bowing his knees to the Father, asking that believers would be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith, that they would be rooted and grounded in love, able to comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height of it, and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that they would be filled with all the fulness of God.
“That is not decoration,” the pastor said. “Every word in that prayer was purposeful.” Paul was not asking for comfort or convenience. He was asking God to grow ordinary believers into people who reflected Him.
Beth read the passage twice while the pastor kept talking. She had prayed for a lot of outcomes this year, a certain grade, a certain team, a certain friendship going smoother. She had not prayed, not once that she could remember, to be rooted and grounded in love, or to comprehend anything about the size of Christ’s love for her.
John thought about what it would mean to actually pray verse eighteen for his own kids, not just for their safety or success but for their spiritual maturity. He glanced sideways at Ben, still reading along, lips moving over “filled with all the fulness of God.”
Jane leaned toward Grandma Ruth. “Is that the kind of prayer you’ve prayed for us?”
Ruth smiled without looking up. “Longer than you’ve been alive. It’s the only kind worth the effort.”
The pastor reminded them Paul prayed this big prayer for spiritual growth, and only then praised God for being able to do even more than that prayer asked. “He believed God could do more than Paul himself could ask or imagine,” the pastor said. “So what are you praying for? Comfort, or growth?”
Ben underlined verse nineteen in his own Bible for the first time all service. He thought about how many of his own prayers had been requests to make a hard week easier, and how few of them had asked God to make him more like Christ.
What Scripture Says
In Ephesians 3:14-19, Paul prayed for the believers’ spiritual maturity: that they would be strengthened by the Spirit, that Christ would dwell in their hearts, that they would be rooted and grounded in love, and that they would be filled with all the fulness of God. Every phrase was purposeful. Paul was not praying for comfort. He was praying that ordinary believers would grow into people who reflect God to the world around them, trusting God to answer beyond what he could even ask or imagine.
Friday: Sealed in the Bowl
The pastor closed by reading Ephesians 3:20 and 21 together, the way he had opened. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. He reminded the church that Paul prayed beyond human limitations, beyond his own understanding, and beyond his own faith, believing God could do more than he could ask or imagine.
“What do you pray for,” the pastor asked, and left the question standing.
Ushers came down the aisles with slips of paper and envelopes. Write down the names of people you want God to save, or bring back into a relationship with Him and a local church, he said. Write down something in your own life you need God to deliver you from, that is limiting your own spiritual life. He named examples: discouraged, anxious, angry, lost my faith, lost my joy, overwhelmed, distracted.
Jane wrote two names without hesitating, people she had prayed for once but not recently.
John wrote the name from the margin of his bulletin on Wednesday, and beneath it, one word: distracted.
Beth wrote a name, then after a pause, her own struggle: unsure. She folded the paper twice before anyone could see it.
Ben stared at the slip a long moment, then wrote his friend’s name first. Underneath it, something he had never said out loud to his parents. Lost my faithfulness.
Grandma Ruth sealed her envelope without letting anyone read it and set it in her lap like she had done this before, because she had.
The pastor explained the glass bowl at the front would hold every envelope through August, and that each week the church would pray over them together, as a family bringing every impossible request back to the God who was able to answer the very first one.
John walked his family’s envelopes to the front and set them into the bowl, thinking about the boy who had prayed the smallest, most desperate prayer of his life at sixteen, and gotten the most abundant answer he never could have thought to ask for.
What Scripture Says
“Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen” (Ephesians 3:21). Paul finished his prayer by giving God the glory for being able to do more than anyone could ask or imagine. The same God who answered our impossible prayer for salvation invites us to keep bringing Him every prayer that feels too big, sealed in faith that He is still able, and still worth asking.