What if God answered all your prayers from 2013? What difference would that have made in your life? What significance? Perhaps there would have been an increase in your comfort of living, maybe a pay raise. A couple more “good days” and safe trips around town. A close parking spot, a sunny day for that trip to the beach. But what life changing or world changing events would have happened if God had answered all your prayers? Maybe not a lot, because we didn’t ask for those.

This is a sobering thought I’ve had for the last couple weeks. I’ve realized that if God had answered all my prayers, it wouldn’t have made much of a lifetime impact. Is praying for a pay raise bad? No. Is praying for a sunny day (or in my case, a rainy day) bad? No. But I’ve begun to realize that we pray more often about small things, and don’t go much further than that.

What if I also prayed for my church, that it would be healthy and grow and have a significant impact on my community? What if I prayed for my children, that someday they would have a faith that would not be afraid? What if I prayed that God would make me into the woman He desires me to be, even if the process means poverty and trials and many dark valleys? What if I prayed for my husband, that he would be a godly man?

I’m now looking at 2014. What will I pray for? I want to extend my prayers past myself and my comfort zone. I want to pray for more than a nicer home or food or job promotion or a higher amazon ranking. Those are not bad things, but I don’t want my prayers to be only those things. Because in the end, if that is all God did in my life, then I didn’t live much of a life. And I want it to be more.