Praying Backwards: Transform Your Prayer Life by Beginning in Jesus' Name

by Bryan Chapell

Two problems immediately arise when we treat prayer like a surefire wishing star. First, we limit God by the wisdom of our wishes. If God were really obligated to do what we think should happen, then God would be tethered to the leash of our understanding. Our wishes would fence God’s omniscience within the limits of our brain and restrict his plans to the extent of our insight. But if our wisdom defines the limits of God’s, then our world will inevitably unravel. The job we may want for extra income may take us from the family that God knows needs us more. The immediate cure for our sickness may deny doctors an insight that would save millions or may deprive us of the patience that God will use to bring Jesus into the hearts of our children. We must trust God more than our wishes or concede that our world will be controlled by billions of competing wishes that we have neither the power nor the wisdom to control. The second problem with making prayer a wishing well is forcing the conclusion that prayers, like wishing wells, are fantasies. Though it may seem very holy to say, “I believe that God will be true to his promises and provide what I want,” such expressions ultimately deny everyone’s faith. Everyone suffers. We live in a fallen world. Biblical prayer does not solve all our earthly problems, and God never promised that it would. Jesus did not even promise his disciples a perpetual bed of roses. Instead, he said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Pr...

When Jesus’ priorities come first, our prayers will change. They will be less self-oriented, more Christ-directed, more blessed, and ultimately most satisfying to our hearts.

Somehow proper prayer must put more trust in God’s will than in human wants; otherwise failure to get the things we want will force us to doubt either the power of prayer or the ability of God.

prayer in Jesus’ name is not an incantation to make us worthy of divine attention; it is a confession that we are unworthy of even approaching God apart from the mercy and merits of our Savior.

To do anything in the Lord’s name means to do it for his purposes. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are petitioning God to bring glory to Jesus and we are asking for his will to be done in everything so that he will be honored above all. Prayers in Jesus’ name are enveloped with concern that he be represented, blessed, and glorified. By appealing to Jesus’ name, we surrender our prayers to his purposes.

When we become the primary focus of our prayers and our earthly satisfaction is our greatest concern, then ending our prayer with Jesus’ name is superfluous at best and possibly little more than superstition.

Children pray, “Lord, give me what I want”; the mature pray, “Lord, conform me to what you want.” Children pray for the fulfillment of their desires; the mature pray for the fulfillment of the Savior’s purposes. Children pray for the things they can see; the mature pray that God will be seen. Children pray, “My will be done”; the mature pray, “Thy will be done.”

Praying backwards is an attitude of the heart. To pray backwards means we back away from making ourselves, our wishes, or our wants the primary concerns of our prayer. We always put the purposes of Jesus first.

Eric taught us all to pray, “God, you know my needs and my wants. They are plain to you and I ask you to provide for them. But, Lord, I love you so much that this is my ultimate prayer: Let my life be used to show the greatness and goodness of my God and his eternal love no matter what I face. Above all, I pray for the glory of Jesus’ name.” This is the essence and beauty of praying backwards.

When we perceive the greatness and goodness of our God, our prayers become not so much a seeking after God for our purposes but an offering of ourselves for his purposes. We seek to offer no prayer to him that we could not pray backwards. In putting Jesus’ name first, we move our designs to the rear and place his in the front of our affections. We offer our prayers with confidence not in our wisdom but in his, with priority not on our confused desires but on his perfect will, not for the glory of our name but in Jesus’ name. Such commitment springs from the faith that when we pray in Jesus’ name, he will give us the desires of our heart because our heart’s greatest joy will be for his will to be done. We seek to have all our prayers and all that is in them honor the name of our infinitely wise, powerful, and loving Savior, knowing that when he is most honored, we are most blessed.

At times I could not help but liken myself to the monk who is reputed to have wagered with a fellow monk whether either could recite the Lord’s Prayer without being distracted. The second monk offered a horse to the first if he could recite the Lord’s Prayer even once without his thoughts straying. The first monk took the bet and began to recite. Within two sentences he stopped and said, “You win. Even as I was praying, I began to wonder if the horse came with a saddle.”

By requesting that God honor his name, Jesus teaches us to ask God to make all creation recognize and revere his holiness. Of course, included in creation is the one praying. So in the same breath that we request God to make his name holy everywhere else, we also ask God to make our own heart honor him.

we essentially say to God, “May you have dominion. Rule over all things, great and small. Make your priorities determine the desires and acts of everyone in the world.”

But we are not simply to pray for the future kingdom of God. In the Lord’s Prayer we express the desire for God to bring honor to his name every day and everywhere.

Jesus’ model for prayer places God’s purposes as the highest priority of our petitions. This does not rule out prayers for our concerns but places them in proper order—secondary to his.

the Bible tells us to orient our wants so that both our heart and God’s will be most fulfilled.

Their sin was not in desiring tastier bread but rather in not appreciating the God who sustained them. They wanted bread that would make them less dependent on him and less devoted to his purposes. God’s people were no longer most pleased by that which most glorified him.

Most of the time God also provides far more than our necessities through the successes of our jobs, the relationships of our families, and the innumerable joys of our lives. Sometimes, however, God has a greater purpose in mind.

The Christian who prays for daily bread asks God to supply the food necessary to further his eternal purposes. For the one who delights in doing God’s will, there is no greater nourishment or pleasure than this daily bread.

In this nation of great affluence where God’s hand is so easily denied and the underprivileged so easily forgotten, we should well understand this temptation.

Ultimately the key to whether a circumstance is a trial or a temptation is not found in its features but in our heart. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to pray that God, who knows the capabilities of our heart, would keep from us anything that Satan could use to overpower our ability to do God’s will.

Therefore the prayer for God not to lead us into temptation includes automatically our request for him to enable us to desire and do his will.

The more we desire to honor the Lord who loves us so, the more we recognize our constant need of his grace.

Our prayers for forgiveness not only confess the weakness in our nature but also honor the grace in his. Both aspects of the petition for forgiveness reorient our life to God’s will and cause us to reflect more of his character.

When we have truly understood how great is God’s love for us—though we, by our sin, have abused his care and trampled on the blood of his Son—then our hearts soften toward those who have wronged us.

His pardoning nature becomes more of our nature so that his will for others becomes more our desire for them—even those who sin against us.

When we grasp his intent, then we understand that asking for personal forgiveness automatically creates an obligation and compulsion to forgive. You simply cannot truly experience grace without having it profoundly transform your attitude toward others.

By his example as well as by the instruction of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to undergird every request with: “Yet not my will, Lord, but your will be done.” In essence, Jesus teaches us again to pray backwards. We put his purposes first, because we treasure his honor above our earthly desires.

Proper belief is not unwavering confidence that something we want will happen, nor is it doubtless trust that we know what is best. Our trust is not in the thing that we want or in our sufficient faith. The success of our prayers does not lie in exceptional confidence that we have pumped enough of our own faith into our prayer (and extracted enough doubt) so that now God must respond. Our belief must be in God. He, not our desire, is the object of our faith. We pray believing that God is all-powerful, all-wise, and infinitely loving—and that we are not. We tell God our desires for matters large and small, but always our greatest desire is that his will be done. We yield to God’s will because we believe that the Good Shepherd will provide only the absolute best. Thus when Jesus teaches us to ask and we will receive (Luke 11:9–10), he does so only after telling us that those who believe in him ask for the will and purpose of God above all things (vv. 2–4). Praying in Jesus’ name requires seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness with the absolute trust that God will then add all that is best for us (Matt. 6:31–33). This is the way that Jesus prayed and the way he taught us to pray

Our Savior was right both to offer his petition and to subject it to God’s design. Seeking the will of his Father was the mark of Jesus’ faithfulness, not the failure of it.

All who are so bold as to tell God exactly how to answer are expressing a kind of belief, but it is great faith in human wisdom and faint confidence in our God. I do not have the wisdom, insight, or vision to prescribe God’s acts. I do not know whether I will take another breath after finishing this sentence, or if the one reading it will. My confidence and yours should rest not on our limited knowledge but on God’s unfathomable wisdom, inestimable power, and unfailing love.

sovereignty.

God is in control and we are not. He rules over all things to accomplish the purposes that most glorify him and most bless his people.

The confidence that he has the power to promote his glory and the love to provide for our good also enables us to face disappointments without doubting his eternal plan.

We freely acknowledge our disappointments when the promotion does not come, when we fail the test, when a child rebels, when injustice occurs, when relationships erode, when storms destroy, and when evil has its day. But faith clings to the certainty that the disappointment is due to the limitations of our human sight, because a sovereign God is able to accomplish much that is beyond our sight.

God’s sovereign oversight of our prayers assures us that we can seek him when we are struggling with life’s greatest difficulties. We don’t have to have the answers all figured out before we ask his help. He will provide the best even when—or especially when—we confess that we have more questions than answers about how to pray (Rom. 8: 26).

We are eternal beings. Our physical existence is neither the extent of our time nor the limit of God’s opportunity to heal. God can also raise us to himself for the healing that is perfect and eternal. In his sovereign timing, he may choose to do this late or early in our measurement of life, because our earthly life span is but the blink of an eye in God’s eternal time frame.

Some time ago I needed to make a difficult financial announcement to the seminary I serve, and I was stewing about it during my early-morning jog in a neighborhood park. Deep in thought, I came to the top of a hill just as flying geese were approaching a nearby lake from the other side of the rise in preparation for their splash landing. The result was that for a split second I found myself face-to-face with a rapidly approaching goose. I ducked to my right, but he dodged to his left so that we were still facing collision. I froze, anticipating the crash of our noggins, but then, in one of those sequences that seems as though it is recorded in slow motion in our brains, I watched as he tweaked his tail and lifted a leg so that his body twisted and he veered past my shoulder with an outstretched wing almost grazing the top of my head. Once I realized that I had been spared, I could not help being a little philosophical. Oh, great, I thought, wouldn’t that have been a way to go out. I can imagine the headlines: “Seminary President Taken to Heaven on the Wings of a Goose.” Yet, though it may seem a bit silly, in a strange way being saved by that little flick of a goose’s tail gave me a great deal of peace that day. The Lord gave me an opportunity to think of his protection in every moment of my life on a day that I was worried about dear friends, the place I serve, and many months of pressure to come. I began to consider the arrangements God had to make for that split-second ...

Jesus again tells the disciples to depend on the fatherly nature of God. If they, being evil (in comparison to the goodness of God), know how to give good gifts to their children, then the disciples should not question that their heavenly Father will “give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

God promises that if we are committed to his purposes, he will work everything together in our life for our good. Most Christians know this promise very well, but few Christians recognize its vital connection to the work of the Holy Spirit through prayer. Paul introduces God’s promise to work all things for our good with a description of the Holy Spirit’s part in prayer. If we forget the context, we will miss how special is the heavenly Father’s gift of the Holy Spirit to those who pray in Jesus’ name. Paul writes: The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. Romans 8:26–28

Paul said, “We do not know what we ought to pray for.” Still, this lack of knowledge did not stop his prayers, because he understood the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Paul writes of creation groaning for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. The apostle likens these groans to the cries of a mother giving birth (Rom. 8:22). In the next verse the apostle says believers groan with the same pain as they await God’s redemption of our bodies—the time when all suffering ceases. Finally, Paul writes that the Spirit also groans, interceding for the Lord’s purposes in our lives. With more fervor than we can express, and with the urgency of a mother in childbirth, the Spirit cries before the throne of grace, “Holy God, bless your people. God of Creation, bend the world to your glorious purposes for those seeking you. Heavenly Father, work all things together for your children’s good.”

The Spirit cries as in the agonies of one birthing new life because new life is being formed—a new world order. The world is hurtling toward the kingdom of God for which Jesus taught us to pray. Yet at the same time, the Holy Spirit groans with urgency and affection beyond our ability to muster, urging the heavenly Father to fashion all things for the good of his children. The Spirit becomes Christ’s instrument of intercession for us. He pleads for God to order the temporal world for our eternal good. And because our Triune God cannot deny himself, the Father must respond to the near and dear cries of the Spirit (2 Tim. 2:13). The Father makes all creation bow to our good in response to the pleading of the Spirit. The realization that the Holy Spirit expresses his fervor through our prayers is as humbling as it is startling. So many times when I pray about difficulties in my church, for struggles of friends and family, or for sin in my heart, there is little urgency in my prayer. I may even fall asleep praying for the salvation of those I love. Too often I am too weak and distracted to pray as I ought. I am like the disciples who fell asleep while Jesus wept (Matt. 26:36–43). My shame can tempt me to give up praying, but the promises of the Spirit strengthen me. My lack of fervor is no reason to rein in my prayers. As I pray so weakly, the Holy Spirit strongly pleads for me with groans deeper than I can express to touch the heart of the Father. And the Father, who sent his...

God answers our prayers when we pray in accord with his will, but we struggle to know God’s will. So how do we pray according to God’s will when we don’t know it? God provides the answer by supplying his Spirit. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in accord with God’s will (Rom. 8:26–27).

Because the Spirit works through my prayers to do his will, I do not have to know all the answers or emote just the right feeling for God to use me. I do not have to say everything right or do everything right to have all things turn out right. The Spirit takes these burdens from me. The Holy Spirit uses fallible prayers offered in faith to accomplish God’s perfect will.

Yet there are times when I know I have blown it. I fail to accomplish some goal or I say something wrong. My shame makes me crawl toward my God, saying, “O Lord, I am so sorry I let you down.” God replies: “Do not despair, child. You were not holding me up. I am the sovereign God who works all things for good.”

Despite our limited view, Spirit-filled prayer is a force more powerful than the mightiest river, cutting a course through land and time to make all things work together for good.

pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

The believer discovers that life with Christ is better than the empty and colorless pursuit of the world’s pleasures. Walking with him, loving him, and loving all that he loves now fulfill us and give our world its color. Old pursuits can still beckon us when we wander from him, but they will never fulfill us as they once did. Our hearts have been forever changed.

We become less selfish, less concerned for personal gain, and more eager to be used for and fulfilled by God’s purposes. Jesus’ glory becomes the priority of our prayers because we love him above all and most desire that he be honored and pleased.