We all go through seasons in our lives. Lately, I have been in a season of praying little prayers. I have been hedging my prayers carefully with qualifiers and minimizers. I’ve been hesitant to over-ask, especially for myself.

Sunday morning, my pastor mentioned that some people don’t trust God for salvation, relying instead on their works. It made me ponder whether my view of God was also wrong and causing me to hold back on trusting Him with things.

I know God. I know He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, all merciful, all just, all everything wonderful and good. I usually live in that and rejoice in that. Lately however, as I’ve been drowning in the mundane and the burdens of other people’s problems piled on to my own, despite knowing who God really is, I’ve been serving a poor God in His place.

As I mulled over what I ask of God and wish Him to do for me, I thought of some of my current concerns. If a neighbor came over and blessed us with a week’s worth of groceries, I would not feel blessed. I would feel indebted and burdened because I know our neighbors are hardly better off than we are. They can’t afford an extra week’s worth of groceries for a large family any more than we can right now. On the other hand, if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos came and paid off our mortgage tomorrow, I would be excited and joyful because I know that buying us a house would in no way diminish their vast wealth. I would not worry that they are inconvenienced or made poorer by such a gift and would be perfectly happy in the magnificent gesture.

So what about God? If I hesitate to ask for good things, not out of selfishness and greed, but out of legitimate need and want, have I not put a poor God on the throne of my heart? If I fear to spend time in prayer on my own needs because others have greater needs, am I fearing that the God Who I know is beyond time is somehow constrained by the limits on my prayer time? If I refuse to ask for magnificent deliverance from sin for loved ones, instead asking only that their children may receive the least harm possible from the choices of the adults around them, am I not implying that the arm of God has waxed short?

My God is an awesome God. He is the God with unsearchable riches in Christ Jesus. He has enough wealth to meet my physical needs and my neighbor’s. He has enough righteousness to cover all my sins and theirs too. He has grace sufficient for all my needs—not just the big ones. He is a good God, a God to be trusted. I can pray in full confidence of His ability, knowing that I am welcome in His throne room. I am His child. My High Priest sits at His right hand. My Comforter prays for me the things that I cannot even speak. Knowing what a rich God I serve, knowing that He desires me to come in prayer, how dare I refuse what He so generously offers? How dare I come to Him simpering and whining with an “if you please” and “if it’s not too much trouble?” Instead, let me come to Him in full boldness and joy, the heir to His riches, and ask according to His will that He mightily save my dear ones. Let me come and ask that in His generosity that He meet my needs both in the here and in the hereafter.

Let me forsake this poor God of my own making and fully serve the rich God I know and love. My God is so rich that He is not diminished at all by meeting all the needs I could possibly bring to Him. Let me make room for God to pour out His blessings by the bucketful so that worlds are turned upside down. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go talk to my Father.