Asking God to bless me and pour out his favor on me feels kind of selfish. But the more I read scripture, the more I’m convinced that we should ask God to bless us and should lift up prayer for favor.
Here’s why.
Why Pray For Favor? Because God Loves To Bless
As I read through the Bible, I see again and again that God absolutely loves to bless his people. He takes special pleasure in giving his people good gifts. He is overflowing with good things and blessings.
Consider Psalm 31:19, which says:
Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!
Consider Matthew 7:8-11:
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
These verses make no qualifications when it comes to asking God for blessings. It doesn’t say, “If your motives are perfect and you’ve had a great spiritual week, then you can ask God to give you good things.”
No, it simply says, “Ask and it will be given to you.” Period. Don’t over think it. Don’t endlessly analyze yourself to determine if you’re “good enough” to ask God for blessings. Simply ask God for whatever it is that you need.
Does God promise that he’ll give us everything we ask? No, of course not. There are times when it wouldn’t be good if God gave us what we asked. So God doesn’t always give us everything. But God does tell us something glorious about himself. He says that he is our Father and that because he’s our Father, he loves to give us good gifts.
This reality gives us great confidence to lift up prayer for favor.
No Good Thing Will Be Withheld
Psalm 84:11 is further proof of this glorious fact. It says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
It says that God doesn’t withhold any good thing from those who walk uprightly. Do we always walk uprightly? No, of course not. But in Christ, who always walked uprightly. I can say that I do indeed walk uprightly. Therefore, I can confidently lift up prayer for favor because I know that God won’t withhold any good thing from me.
One more verse to inspire you to pray for God’s richest blessings upon your life.
Psalm 23:6 says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
This is such a sweet, profound verse. It says that goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. In other words, I can never escape God’s goodness and mercy. God loves us so much that he will literally pursue me with his goodness every day of my life. Every day we wake up to new mercies and fresh blessings. Isn’t that good news?