Pray what?

The more I read the prayers of Paul and of Christ, the more my eyes are opened to my own selfishness and worldly thinking. Walking into any prayer meeting at almost any church the prayer requests center almost exclusively around the physical and the visible. Wealth, health, the circumstances surrounding us are usually sought to be done away with instead of used. Looking at my own prayer requests it would seem I just want to live in a perfect world! Paul almost never prayed for a church's circumstances, for he knew full well the believers lived in a fallen world, with tough situations. Indeed instead of asking for the absence of difficultly a more Biblical prayer may be growth in circumstances and 'Thy will be done.'

Secondly I have noticed within my prayers I am constantly addressing the outside issues of others instead of the heart issue. If a faucet is spewing dirty water I wouldn't paint the outside to make the water clean. So why do I pray for the fruit of growth in others instead of the growth itself which comes as a believer is engaged by the living true God? As Christians we love results and in this pursuit we have many times left inward change and growth for an outward circumstantial conformity. Instead of prayer for inward growth and revelation through God's word I pray that my friend would stop lying. Is lying really the issue or is it deeper?

So what did Paul see that God was concerned about? What needs did God seem to be most concerned about as reflected in Paul's prayer?

Ephesians 1:17-18, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ... may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe."

Phil. 1:9, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight..."

Col. 1:9, "...we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding."

Ephesians 3:18-19, "...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."

God wants fruit, but His method is inward change, He wants us to know Him, not just to do this or that.

My point here is not that prayer or concern about the physical and the visible is wrong, for indeed we must bring those requests to God just as Peter tells us to "casts all your cares upon the Lord for He cares for you." My problem in my own prayer life is the one-sidedness experienced. The lack of concern for spiritual welfare and the overemphasis on physical wellness is detrimental to our understanding of how God works. Paul was beaten, shipwrecked, mocked and ridiculed yet looking to the Lord and trusting His will he found life. A walk of faith looks to an unchangeable Christ instead of our circumstances which are ever changing and so many times uncertain. Just as knowing God and Christ is my ultimate needs, so it should be reflected in my prayers for others. Indeed God cares for both my physical and spiritual needs, but the determiner of my needs is HIM, not me.