I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.
1 John 5:13-15

Dear God, I’ve gotten to the point in my life we’re I try to be careful about what I ask of you. I know that my requests can be foolish. I might pray for an outcome that is out of your plan. I might want something for myself or my children that will get in the way of what you are trying to do. The same goes for my work, my community, my country and even the world. I don’t know what you’re doing or how it all works out. There are things in my life that, to the human eye, look like complete failure. But I have prayed to you about them incessantly. My wife has prayed about them. So now I am just trusting that this is the path you need us to walk to accomplish what you have to accomplish. After all, Jesus taught us to pray, “YOUR kingdom come and YOUR will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I have a big event tonight for the nonprofit where I work. It’s a fundraising event and my temptation is to go into it wanting to hit our revenue goal and impress the board of directors. I want to be able to point to how “good” I am at my job and use it to make me feel good about myself. The truth, however, is that you might have completely different goals for tonight, and none of them might pertain to money or my reputation. There might be one person in the audience who needs to see you and what you can do in their life. There might be one person who is inspired to work with us or some other nonprofit in town. There might be someone who decides they have missed you and wants to repent before you.

Father, my request of you for this dinner is that you will do with it what you want. We are spending $25,000 to put this thing on. Be glorified in all of it. Use it. Use it to help us raise money for our work and help us to be good stewards of that money. Use it to touch lives. Use it to bless our staff. Use it to let your will be done and your kingdom to come on earth and in our town as it is in heaven. Give us the daily bread that we need as an organization to do the work you have for us to do, and give us a vision for what that work is.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen