If this prayer was good enough for Solomon back in the day, then it still works for me. 🙏🏾 However, it’s important to always look at the Bible in its historical context, so we don’t read things into the verses that simply aren’t there. We are not Solomon, and this is not the Old Testament, and there isn’t a specific place we have to visit (like a temple) in order to pray to the Lord. Still, I think there is an important lesson that can be extracted from this verse.
My take on it is this: so long as our actions and desires are God-honoring, steeped in wisdom, and sincerely meant, I see no reason why we shouldn’t ask the Lord for His favor when we pray. This is not the same thing as a prosperity gospel message – rather, it is a way of acknowledging all that the Lord has done to bring us this far, inviting His participation in all that we say and do (even in our prayers!) and recognizing that we are powerless to do anything further without His provision and care.
With this perspective in mind, I invite you to kick off your next prayer time with this invocation from 2 Chronicles 6 (if you feel so led):
Now, O my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and Your ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place….
