The next component of prayer is supplication: “petitioning [God] for the good things for which we are totally dependent on him.” In Praying with Paul, Don Carson explains that Paul’s supplication was not focused on the things that Christians so often linger on, but on spiritual things; namely, that the Christians whom Paul is praying for would be worthy of their calling, and that God would bring to fulfillment each Christian’s purposes in Christ. Similarly, Paul exhibits the last component of prayer, intercession, countless times in his epistles. Yet, among this list of intercessory prayers, Paul continues to return to one specific request: that the grace of God would be with those for whom he is praying (Rom. 16:20-24; 1 Cor. 16:23; 2 Cor. 13:14; Gal. 6:18; Eph. 6:24; Phil. 4:23; Col. 4:18; 1 Thess. 5:28; 2 Thess. 3:18; 1 Tim. 6:21; 2 Tim. 4:22; Titus 3:15; and Phil. 25).
I hope that you have been asking God for things in your prayer lives, and that you notice when He gives it to you.
