Exceeding Abundantly

Exceeding Abundantly

George Müller kept meticulous records of his prayer requests and their answers for over sixty years. The records show a man who prayed specific, sometimes audacious requests — buildings needed, funds needed, children to be fed — and saw specific, sometimes extraordinary answers. He did not pray large because he was a large person; he prayed large because he had a large God. He wrote: 'I begin to see the answers to prayer before I pray, because I know Who I am praying to.' Ephesians 3:20 was, he said, his philosophy of prayer: God's ability exceeds my asking by more than I can calculate.

Ephesians 3:20 contains one of the most extravagant descriptions of divine capacity in Scripture: 'immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.' The Greek hyperekperissou (immeasurably, exceedingly, abundantly) is a superlative piled on a superlative — beyond all measure, above the beyond. God's capacity is not equal to our asking; it exceeds our asking by an amount we cannot imagine. The verse does not say He will always give immeasurably more than we ask — it says He is able to. The capacity is there. The asking, the aligning, the receiving — these are our part. But the God we are asking is not limited by the size of our request or the weakness of our imagination.