Questions and Answers on Prayer (A.W. Tozer)

Prayer for Personal Desires QUESTION: Can one pray to have a personal desire fulfilled and still be fully surrendered to Godís will? A personal desire, yes, but not a selfish one. There is a difference. A prayer may be personal and still have no element of selfishness in it. The motive is everything. To be free from selfishness a prayer must be (a) according to the will of God as that will is revealed in the Scriptures; (b) for the honor of God rather than for the mere fulfillment of carnal ambition; (c) made in unaffected love for God and men. Of course this rules out covetousness, competition and all evil desire. A few Biblical examples of personal requests which were honored by the Lord are found in the prayers of Abraham, David, Hannah, the woman of Shunem, Jabez, Hezekiah, Ezekiel, the leper in Matthew 8, Bartimaeus and Paul. QUESTION: You warn against using God and trying to employ Him to achieve our own ends. Would not asking God for something personal be an attempt to use Him? A truly spiritual man will be so united to Christ that he will have no desires apart from Him. If we Christians lived in the Spirit as perfectly as we should and could, our common interests would touch not only ourselves but the honor of God and the welfare of mankind as well. In answering a ìpersonalî prayer God would then be helping the individual, blessing mankind and bringing glory to His own name all in one act. We need not hesitate to ask God to help us to achieve ends that lie in God. Our difficulty comes from asking Him to help us to reach ends that lie outside of Him.