Half my prayers feel too small and too selfish to bother God with. Should I really be praying about a parking space and a job interview?

“And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.”

Buried in nine chapters of genealogy, the chronicler stops for two verses to record a man called Jabez, whose name means pain, asking God to bless him, enlarge his territory and keep him from harm. It is a blunt, practical, frankly self interested prayer about land and safety. The text notes without any embarrassment that God granted it. Someone thought a request that ordinary was worth preserving.

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

This comes near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus has been raising the standard of discipleship steeply for three chapters. Then he turns to prayer and uses three ordinary verbs: ask, seek, knock. The picture behind them is a child at a father's door rather than a subject petitioning a king. He goes on to contrast God with human parents who, flawed as they are, still hand over bread.