Addressing a Childhood Wounding through Paul’s Prayer

Paul composed a prayer for the Ephesian believers that reveals the in-depth healing he had undergone in the transformation from hunting down and persecuting Christians in his works-based zeal for God to feeling deeply and compassionately about them. He obviously came from a very religious family since he had qualified academically to become a Pharisee. His earliest actions were extremely rigid and harsh. The scene at the end of Ephesians when the believers walked with him down to the shore where they embraced and wept together before he sailed away shows a tenderized and transformed man.

I see Paul’s prayer as asking the Lord to accomplish the same work in the Ephesians’ hearts as He had accomplished in Paul’s. How else would Paul have even known how to request such things?

My Prayer for the Holy Spirit to Heal my Childhood Emotional Wound

Based on Eph. 3:14-20

“I pray that God may grant me, according to

the riches of His glory,

to be strengthened with power

in the inner person

through Your Holy Spirit.

And that the Messiah

may dwell in my heart through faith.

I pray that I, being rooted and firmly established in love

may be able to comprehend

with all the saints

what is the

length & width

height & depth

of God’s love

and to know

the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge

so that

I may be filled with

All the fullness of God.”

Now, to Him who is able 

to do above and beyond all we ask or think according to the power that works in me,

to Him, be all glory in the church and in Christ Jesus

to all of my generations

forever & ever.

Amen

Expanded Version of Prayer for Childhood Emotional Wound Healing

I ask that You, my true Father,

May grant me

Based upon the riches of Your glory

to be strengthened with power

in my inner self, the inner “me,”

through Your Spirit.

I ask that Jesus may

“dwell”

in my heart through the faith that You provide for me.

I ask that I might become

rooted & grounded & firmly established

in Your love.

I ask that Your Holy Spirit reveal to me—help me comprehend—how much You love me, an “unquantifiable” amount.

I ask that once I begin to grasp that Your love is “un-graspable,”

that I would begin to

 “settle into it,”

to know it experientially.

I ask that I might be filled

with all the fullness of God.

Thank You

that You are able to answer above and beyond what I’m asking

because of Your Holy Spirit within me.

May You be glorified

and

may future generation be blessed

because of your work in response to this prayer.

Amen.

© Now I Get It