The Lord Jesus is saying, ‘Here is how you pray. You want your Father to provide for you.’ Why should I want that? Because he can provide me with things which I cannot otherwise have, and I desire them. He can provide me with things far higher and far more important even than bodily food, and I am lacking them until I go to him. He can provide me with life in my soul. He can provide me with spiritual understanding so that I know what I'm here for and what life is about. Day by day he can give me happiness and grace and strength to live. He can help me and bless me in all departments of my life: make me a child of God, feed my hungry spirit, hear my prayers, bless me, help me in all my trials and problems. He will not necessarily deliver me out of them, but because I am proving him and his goodness and his strength, he will help me in everything.
This is how you must pray, says the Lord Jesus. You must come to the point where you realize that you are cut off from God. You don't have these blessings. Try as you might. You can only help yourself to a tiny portion of good things, but all the things that your soul needs, God must give you day by day. Therefore you must begin to desire all the blessing which God alone can give you, especially forgiveness of sin and the conversion of your soul. ‘How shall we pray’, ask the disciples. Says the Lord, ‘Begin to desire that all your needed blessings will come from God.’