You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

My wife and I moved to Alaska a couple of months ago after praying and preparing for this move for four years. We’ve been so excited to get here, both to be a part of ACF and to get to experience what Alaska has to offer.

What I did not think about was how much stuff I was going to want once we moved. There is so much to do here, but you need some kind of gear to do some of it. So, my mental Christmas list has steadily gotten longer since we moved: a side-by-side, hunting gear, an F150 Raptor. Just the essentials, nothing crazy.

There isn’t anything bad about these things themselves, but there are issues when our desires for something take over. First, that feeling will never be fully satisfied, so whatever we have will never be enough.Second, when our desires get away from us it’s typically because we want something for ourselves. And last, we could be using these things to cope with some emotion we have not fully dealt with.

So, could I pray and ask God for an F150 Raptor to be in my driveway when I get home? Sure. Is that going to happen? Probably not. And is that how I should think about prayer? Not at all. 

So why does James say that we don’t have because we don’t pray? How do our motives impact how we pray?

It’s become more common to hear the topic of prayer sound like we’re talking about a genie. There are things we want, there are real needs we have, and so we read verses like James 4:2 and think, “I just need to ask, and I’ll get whatever I ask for.” But this isn’t Aladdin; life tends to work out differently.

God doesn’t want to give us whatever we want. He wants to give us what He knows is best for us. And what God has for us is better than anything we could ever want for ourselves.

When we remember that, everything changes in how we view prayer. Prayer is no longer about us getting whatever comes to mind, it’s about us as a creation getting to be in the presence of the One who created us. It’s about refocusing our hearts and minds on the things that God cares about. It’s about being reminded that we have a Father who is greater than our circumstances and is present with us every step of the way. 

The practice of prayer is not intended to get more things from God, it’s for us to get more of God himself. And when we get more of God, we change, our desires change, and our motivations change to look more like the God who saved us.

God, thank you that you see every need that we have. Thank you that you know what we need before we even know we need it. We pray for your forgiveness for the times that we’ve wanted our way more than your way. We ask that you would begin to change our desires by bringing us closer to yourself.We ask that you would give us more of your Spirit as we look to see you in every area of our lives. Change our desires to be what you want, not what we want. In Jesus’ name. Amen.