There Is More to Prayer Than Just Asking

 (Introduction to Prayer Series)

20/04/2026

Many years ago, a friend of mine looked at me and said, “You are suitable to be an intercessor.”

Inside, I laughed, because the thought felt completely ridiculous. I couldn’t even hold a prayer for one minute. How in the world could someone like me be suitable to be an intercessor?

That moment stayed with me for years. It became the starting point of a long journey of discovering what prayer really is.

Many of us, including me, approach prayer in a very practical way. We come to God with our list of needs or other people’s needs and we just babble our petitions, our requests, our problems, or other people’s problems. Once we finish telling God everything we need, we don’t know what else to say, so we end the prayer.

Sometimes if we want to pray longer, we do one of two things. We go around asking other people for their needs and start collecting more and more needs so that we can pray longer, or we stretch and elaborate on the same needs and keep babbling about them, turning our prayer into a long storytelling session.

I am not saying that God does not hear our prayer when we pray this way. Doctrinally speaking, God does hear these prayers. In fact, the moment we open our mouth and give our attention to God, it already delights Him. God has always been waiting for us to talk to Him. He simply wants our attention.

A few months ago, during a prayer meeting, I saw a simple image. As the people prayed, all their prayers rose up like incense to heaven, to God. That image reminded me that God truly hears every prayer, even if it is just simply asking God for needs, and He receives them with great delight.

This picture reminded me of what the Bible says in Psalm 141:2: “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands like the evening sacrifice.”

But is this everything about prayer? Or is there something more? Is prayer merely about bringing our needs and asking God for needs?

Personally speaking, from my own experience, praying only about needs day after day can sometimes feel very draggy and even boring. Surely there must be more to prayer than just praying for needs.

Let me share an analogy from the temple. When the people brought their sacrifice, they stayed in the outer court. They offered their sacrifice and then they left. In the same way, when we pray our needs and end the prayer once we have finished telling God everything, it is like bringing our prayer sacrifice to the outer court and, once we are done, we simply walk away.

In the past only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place, and even then only once a year. But when Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, and the blood of Jesus allowed us access into the very presence of God. And as such we are no longer limited to the outer court, and we can anytime enter the Holy Place and even the Holy of Holies.

In simple terms, prayer is simply walking past the outer court into the Holy Place and entering into the Holy of Holies where we meet Him face to face and commune with Him.

The question is this: Now that we can enter the Holy of Holies, do we still want to just stay at the outer courts? Or do we want to start exercising our privilege of entering into the Holy of Holies, where we can get so much more out of prayer than what we can get by just remaining at the outer courts?

Only when we move past mere petitioning and truly enter His presence do we discover that prayer is not as draggy or mundane as we once thought. The Bible tells us, “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). That is where prayer stops feeling like a duty and becomes a place we actually enjoy — a place of delight in Him.

And this is not just a mere concept or theory. For those of us, including myself, who have tasted it before, we know what it truly means to be in His presence and to experience this delight in Him. That is where we can truly relate to what the psalmist says — that he would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than dwell a thousand days elsewhere (Psalm 84:10). That is where we understand what it means to become desperate for His presence, like a deer that pants for flowing streams (Psalm 42:1). And the experience can be very real!

Personally, I have encountered this many times. When I truly touch the presence of God, my prayer language simply changes. Instead of continuing with my usual requests, I find myself just praising and exalting His holy name. I just keep adoring Him.

I am simply so delighted in Him that everything else fades away. Even the cares and worries of this world become strangely distant. In that moment, I feel deeply assured of His greatness and His wonders. It is a place where I understand His true attribute — that He can do all things and He is the Most High God.

At times, even when I come into prayer with a few needs that I want to bring before Him, I often find it strangely unnatural to bring up those needs anymore. The delight in Him is so strong that I simply cannot bring myself to focus on the requests. And even if I finally decide to mention the needs, my prayer language has already changed. Instead of begging or pleading, I end up praising Him over the need — thanking Him that He is the God who cares for me so much and that He is already in charge of those very needs.

This is where I began to understand what divine exchange really means. It is the act of surrendering to God all our worries, petitions, burdens, and everything that weighs on us — and in return, receiving from Him joy, delight, assurance, and all good things.

I have to admit that not every time of prayer reaches that high intensity of experience. However, prayer is no longer mundane or draggy like it used to be, because it is now more than just petitioning. It has become quality time with Him with varied experiences.

This brings me to the practical side of how we can make prayer more than just a mundane activity.

From my own journey, I have found that there are three important keys.

First, we need to have tasted and experienced His presence before. Once we have truly touched that secret place, we learn to recognize it. We know what it feels like, so we can identify it and intentionally go back to it.

Second, we need to have a real desperation in our hearts. We must truly want to enter that place. It is like standing in front of a lot of thick hanging vines that are crowded and heavy, hanging down from the trees. You know that the presence of God is right behind those vines. So you push them away, you scuffle through them, you bash your way forward until you break through and enter His presence. It is the same as the woman with the issue of blood who had to force her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. Without this kind of desperation, it is easy to remain stuck at the outer court.

Third, and perhaps the most important and practical step of all, is learning how to enter His presence. When I start praying, I have learned not to jump immediately into petitioning. Instead, I begin by praising Him and adoring Him. Sometimes I simply worship. If the worship does not bring an immediate breakthrough, I keep praising Him until there is a first breakthrough. Once I have that first glimpse of breakthrough, that is where I ride on it and enter right into His presence. I have also learned to wait on Him instead of just babbling petitions.

At the beginning, and even at times, we may still struggle with this. Sometimes it can also feel discouraging because we still find prayer draggy or mundane — we just don’t seem to find the so-called right spot.

But if we have really tasted His presence before, that experience creates a certain desperation inside us. This desperation then compels us to hunger for more. It keeps drawing us back again and again to enter into His presence through prayer.

At the same time, we need to be practical. To truly enter His presence, we cannot do it by striving hard with our own strength. The more we push and strive, the more difficult it becomes. Instead, we have to learn to let go and allow Him to take control — to lead us and even carry us into the Holy Place. We cannot force our way in by our own effort; we can only enter when we yield and let Him bring us in.

Trying too hard is very different from true desperation. Desperation is the hunger and desire in our heart, while trying too hard is our own action and striving. Sometimes, if we find ourselves trying too hard with our own strength, it is actually helpful to take a short break — go and open the fridge, have a cup of drink, and then return to pray with a quieter and more rested state.

It can also be very helpful to pray together with a partner. Having someone else praying with us often makes it easier to break through, especially in the beginning. A prayer partner can catalyse the learning process and encourage us to keep trying until we finally manage to enter that place.

Looking back on my own journey, I can truly say that ever since I discovered the multifaceted nature of prayer, everything changed. Prayer is no longer just petitioning. It is no longer mundane or something I struggle with. Instead, it has become a beautiful adventure with God.

Through this, I finally understood what it really means when people say prayer is first and foremost about knowing God. It is not just bringing up petitions in one-way traffic. It is actually a time of divine exchange.

That is where I realized that the true understanding of prayer far supersedes those age-old human theological extremes — one side insisting we must pray until something happens, and the other saying God has already decided everything so our prayers cannot change His mind.

I would like to gently encourage those who still find prayer difficult, boring, or mundane. I hope this sharing has helped bring some understanding that prayer is more than just bringing our needs. It is not that you lack spirituality. It may simply be that we have not yet tasted the joy of truly entering His presence. Many of us have been staying at the outer court, thinking that bringing our needs is all there is. Let us move beyond just bringing our needs to the outer court.

I hope that this sharing will encourage everyone to move past the outer court and to enter the Holy Place and even the Holy of Holies — where you can meet Him face to face and commune with Him, and discover that prayer is truly a joy and a delight.

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith… (Hebrews 10:19-22 NKJV)