The One Who Prays Has an Agenda

I’ve come here with an agenda. Here is my prayer list. Here are the ones You have answered. I have prayed this one six times, and I have decided it is not worth continuing with, so let us focus on these two instead. 

Maybe not word for word. Yet, that is pretty much the translation of what some of our prayer time looks like.

We come with a list. As the years go by, we cross some things off, completely abandon some, slot in more, and occasionally decide on God’s behalf that a particular request has no hope. As life happens, our prayer list happens too. It moves, changes, and morphs into something different from what it originally was.

Some prayers seem to develop a shelf life. They start fresh, they stay in regular rotation, and after a while we decide they have been there long enough. So we cross them out. Not the tidy strike-through of something completed. The scribbled-out kind that says, “I am done looking at this.”

Then there are the prayers you see answered, and get to cross them off. Finally!!!

But Scripture gives us a different starting point for the prayer agenda.

Before we get to what we want to ask, it tells us how to enter the presence of God.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
Psalm 100:4, KJV

The first instruction is about how we enter His presence: with thanksgiving and with praise.

That is why I think of prayer almost like a burger. Praise and thanksgiving are the buns, and the petition sits in the middle. A burger doesn’t make much sense as just a patty with no bread. It becomes even more laughable when it is patty after patty stacked back to back. At that point, it is hardly a burger.

And sometimes that is what our prayers become: petition after petition after petition, a laundry list with no thanksgiving.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Philippians 4:6, KJV

Prayer and supplication are there, so is the request, yet the sentence adds thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known unto God with thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not simply what comes after the prayer has been answered. It is to be present while you make the request, while waiting for the answer, and when the answer comes.

Yet, the one who prays has an agenda.

No one begins a prayer with, “Dear God, I actually do not know why I am here. Hi. Bye.” When we pray, we tend to have an agenda, which is hardly the problem. The question is: what do you do when God has a different agenda?

Answered prayers look like this

There is a place in prayer where we move from making a demand on Heaven to coming into agreement with what Heaven has demanded.

This is one of the things that fascinates me about praying in the Spirit.

Paul writes:

For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.

1 Corinthians 14:14–15, KJV

Another version says:

Well then, what shall I do? I will pray in the spirit, and I will also pray in words I understand. I will sing in the spirit, and I will also sing in words I understand.
1 Corinthians 14:14–15, NLT

There are prayers we utter where our understanding is limited. Romans tells us this, yet we have to be willing to pray it.

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
Romans 8:26–27, NLT

I am not saying we should not make our petitions known. Scripture tells us to do exactly that. We pray with our understanding, and we pray in the Spirit. Yet there is something different about praying without first deciding what the answer must look like. 

Say you prayed for a Corvette and it never came (not because you expected one to drop from Heaven into your driveway or underground parking). Are you still willing to trust God’s answer? Or do you reject His answer because it did not look the way you expected?

Scripture is full of people who prayed and received answers that did not simply mirror their request.

Paul prayed three times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed. God answered:

My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9, KJV

Moses pleaded with God to allow him to cross over and see the Promised Land. God allowed him to see it, but told him he would not cross the Jordan.

Elijah asked God to take his life. God gave him food, water, rest and strength for the journey ahead. 

Even Jesus prayed:

Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
Luke 22:42, KJV

“Let this cup pass” was the petition. “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” was the posture.

In these prayers, one thing remains: obedience to God’s will.

So I should have known that when I prayed to God for ease while juggling new responsibilities as I entered into a new phase of life, my prayer would be answered. Just not in the way I expected. I entered a period where my responsibilities demanded more of me mentally, emotionally, and physically. I had to learn quickly and prepare more intentionally.

During that period, I kept praying, “Lord, make it easier.” Things did not technically become easier. My capacity changed.

What would once have been difficult for me became something I knew how to steward. I became better prepared and more capable of stepping into unfamiliar spaces. In hindsight, I can see that I was receiving God’s answer to my prayers. To me, an easier season meant familiarity, responsibilities I knew how to carry, and situations I could navigate confidently because I understood what was required. Above all, I had to start praying into my week.

That was something I had taken for granted. As one week ended and another began, I became more intentional about speaking over what was ahead rather than simply entering the week and responding to whatever came.

“This week is good. This week I accomplish things. This week is easy. This week works in my favour. This week is successful.”

And with the weeks came an increase in knowledge and opportunities.

In that period, I also saw the mercy and hand of God. I could go through things and still be protected. I could be corrected and learn. I could recognize where I needed both a mindset shift and a skill shift. I could come out of the season with more than I entered it with.

It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22–23, KJV

The period made me prioritize and realign my life. It helped me see the value of my time and brought clarity to what truly matters. 

Answered prayers can look like sufficient grace, strength for a journey you asked God to end, or simply saying, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

The Answer, just not Your Answer

There is another kind of answered prayer that I find even more interesting: the one we have prayed for so long that praying it becomes religious routine.

Long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Scripture was already carrying the language of a coming King.

Hannah prayed:

The LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.
1 Samuel 2:10, KJV

Israel did not even have a human king yet, and Hannah’s song was already speaking of a King and an Anointed One.

Later, God spoke to David:

And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.
2 Samuel 7:16, KJV

Isaiah continued the promise:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder.Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom.
Isaiah 9:6-7, KJV

A King. An Anointed One. The throne of David. A kingdom without end.

The promise continued across generations.

Then the angel spoke to Mary:

He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Luke 1:32–33, KJV

The King had come. The answer to what had been spoken of, waited for, and carried through generations had come.

And John tells of the reception of the long-expected king:

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

John 1:11, KJV

The answered prayer came, but the answer did not look like what they expected.

The King of Israel and the Saviour of Israel did not look like the answer many had constructed in their minds.

How many times has the Lord answered our prayers, and we have rejected the answer or called it unanswered because it did not look like what we expected? God says of Jesus:

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
Matthew 17:5, KJV

Hear Him, not yourself; hear Him. The emphasis is on Him because the answer He gives is the answer we are called to receive.

There comes a point where the answer you have constructed has to become secondary to the answer God is actually giving.

The Psalmist writes:

For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.
Psalm 33:9, KJV

God speaks, and it is done. If God had answered my prayer by simply making everything easy, I would not have gained the capacity I now have. I probably would have cried less too, although at least my eyes got a thorough rinse.

And I am not glorifying suffering for suffering’s sake here. Scripture does speak about glorying in tribulation because of what God can produce through it:

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.
Romans 5:3–4, KJV

The value was never simply that the season was hard. It was what God developed in me through it.

I learned to use my time better, prepare more intentionally, and depend on God more. If everything had simply become easy, I might have mistaken His help for my own ability.

There are answers that leave no room for us to mistake the source. Answered prayers look like coming to God with an agenda and releasing your grip so your hand can receive what He gives you. They look like making your petitions known and leaving room for God to be God. They look like praying, “Lord, I want this,” and learning to say, “Lord, when/if You will it.”  They look like waiting for a King and receiving Jesus.

An answer from God is still an answer from God, even when it bears little resemblance to the one you have planned to receive.