So-That Prayers
Learning to Pray for God’s Glory Above All
By Jonathan Graf
In the apostle Paul’s day, Rome was not a good place to be a Christian. In fact, it was a crime to worship anyone or anything but Caesar. Believers there likely experienced intense struggles. They had to live out their faith amid pain, rejection, and even fear for their lives.
Today, Western believers don’t face many of those hardships. But our lives are not without pain. We face loss of loved ones due to sickness; we face growing disdain from nonbelievers in our society; we face financial setbacks, loss of jobs, and bad things happening to our kids. All these things are common in believers’ lives.
So, Paul’s prayer for the Roman believers has implications for us:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:13).
What did Paul pray for? Joy and peace.
Why did he pray for those things? So that the believers would overflow with hope.
Hope Is Attractive
When you look at the context of the passage around this prayer, another distinction is added. The other verses are all about evangelism and the gospel going to the Gentiles (non-Jews). The context is seeing people—Romans—come to faith in Jesus Christ. So why did Paul, in the middle of a passage on evangelism, pray for joy, peace, and hope in the believers?
People who have hope in tough times are attractive to other people. You know that to be true. Any time you find a person who is going through something difficult—an illness, pain with a wayward child, or any painful circumstance of life—but doing it with a buoyant spirit and a smile in his heart, people are drawn to him. Such a person can then share the power of Christ in his or her life with others.
That’s why Paul was praying for Roman believers to rise above their circumstances and let the joy and peace of God shine through their lives. And the amazing answer to prayer is that people will be attracted to the gospel!
What about Your Prayers?
As I look at all of Paul’s prayers, I see an interesting pattern. Almost all of them have a “so that” within them. Paul often prays something “so that” something else will happen. In our Romans 15 prayer, he wants them to have hope, but he prays for joy and peace. Why? Because possessing those things will bring hope.
For the Philippian believers, Paul wants them to be discerning and live blameless lives. But he prays that their “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight” (Phil. 1:9).
Love is an amazing force! Paul was praying for love—for both God and for each other—so that they would grow in their discernment of what was best (God’s will and purposes) and that they would live pure and blameless lives.
How can an increase of love bring about all that—a deeper recognition of God’s purposes and a great desire and ability to live a life pleasing to Him? What would an increase of love in everyone do in your church? What would a deeper level of love do in your marriage and family?
Most of our prayers for ourselves and for others usually rest in what my friend Steve Hawthorne of WayMakers calls “little answerables.” Another way of putting it is that most of our prayers are “fix it” in nature. Something has happened that has made our life or the life of someone we love uncomfortable. So, we logically pray the obvious thing—for it to be removed—so life will be normal again.
But what would happen if we thought to pray beyond that? What if we consider that whatever has come into our life or the lives of those we are praying for, God wants to use it for His glory to bring about His purposes and grow His Kingdom?
How would we pray then? I think we would add a “so that”!
But it is difficult to do because the obvious quick fix is so much nicer to experience. To add a “so that,” we need to develop three spiritual attitudes or practices in our lives. I see these three things in John 15:1-10:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”
Verse 7 is a prayer promise everyone loves to quote: “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” But truthfully, that promise does not seem to work in everyone’s life. It certainly does not work 100 percent of the time in my life!
We forget that the promise has some conditions (or three spiritual attitudes). And those conditions will add a “so that” to our prayers!
Make these “attitudes” part of your prayer life:
1. Stay Connected. If we desire to see God’s glory above all in any situation, we must stay connected to the Vine, to Jesus. Our relationship with Him must be at the forefront. If this is true of our lives, we will desire what He desires.
2. Take in His Words. The promise in verse 7 says, “if you remain in me [that’s staying connected] and my words remain in you.” That means we are studying the Bible, His Word to us. We are developing our knowledge of His will as we read His Word. And remember, 1 John 5:14–15 reminds us:
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
Asking for something that is His will is important if we are to receive what we asked for. So, knowing His Word—which is always His will—is an important condition to understand.
3. Bear Fruit. As believers, our primary purpose is to “bear fruit,” to grow the Kingdom of Jesus on earth. The verses prior to our promise in verse 7 focus on our fruit-bearing. We will be pruned, shaped, and fertilized by Jesus to develop our fruit-bearing abilities.
If I understand that purpose for me as a believer, then I will pray with that in mind.
Beyond Fix-It Prayers
So here is how verse 7 works. If I stay connected to Jesus and concentrate on my relationship with Him, if I take in His Words (read the Bible, memorize Scripture) so I better understand His will and purposes, and if I understand that in all circumstances, my purpose is to bear fruit, then I am less likely to quickly ask God to do the obvious, quick-fix solution to my problem.
I am more likely to think, what does God want to do in this situation for Him to receive glory? For His purposes to be fulfilled? That’s a prayer that will be answered!
If we want to see Jesus glorified through our prayers, we may need to shift our thinking. Instead of focusing on the quick fix, maybe God wants to be glorified through another solution.
When you pray for a situation, instead of quickly praying the obvious solution, I recommend two things:
- First, ask the Holy Spirit what you should pray. Then listen—and begin to pray how you sense the Holy Spirit is directing you.
- Second, if you are not sensing what to pray, begin to ask: “What’s the fruit-bearing solution here?” or “What can I pray that will bring glory to Jesus?”
So, next time you pray, ask yourself: What’s the “so that”?
JONATHAN GRAF is the publisher of Prayer Connect and the author of The Power of Personal Prayer and Praying Like Paul, which covers this topic in greater detail. Both are available at prayershop.org or wherever you purchase your Christian books.