God-Sized Praying

There is a question that lingers beneath much of my prayer life:
Why do I so rarely expect God-sized answers?

I often find myself praying cautiously, asking for what feels reasonable, manageable, safe. I believe God can answer prayer — but I pray as though I don't.

I imagine prayer like standing at the front of a store, settling for what is immediately visible and easily reached. Small things. Acceptable things. Things I can picture God saying yes to without much trouble.

But what if God's intention has always been deeper than that?

What if the many "no's" I experience are not refusals at all, but invitations to keep walking — to move past the low-hanging fruit and into places I would never think to ask for on my own?

So often, I grow frustrated before I ever arrive there. I assume disappointment means God is unwilling, when it may simply mean He is leading me further than I am comfortable going.

I ask for little things, not because God is small, but because my expectations are.

And yet, Scripture tells a different story — of a Father who delights in giving good gifts, who knows what we need before we ask, and who is not constrained by the limits of my imagination.

I wonder if God's answers to my prayers reveal that He already knows what I would ask for if I knew what He knows.

So I am learning — slowly — to pray differently.
To walk past the front of the store.
To believe that God is not only able, but willing.
And to ask for what only He can give.

(Written in confinement.)