I love the prayer of King David in response to God’s word through Nathan that David would not be the one to build a temple (2 Samuel 7:18-29, 1 Chronicles 17:16-27). It tells us much about the nature of bold and proper prayer.

To set the stage, David’s kingdom has been largely established, the Ark of the Covenant has been sought out and brought back to prominence in Israelite worship, and David has built his palace. He looks and sees that the Ark is in a tent, and purposes to build a temple for God. Through the prophet Nathan, God tells him, in effect, “You want to build me a house? No, I will build you a house, and your descendant will build my house.” Both texts covering this event then give us David’s prayer of praise in response to the message he has received.

David’s prayer centers around two primary points. First, it is a prayer of praise to God for His faithfulness, fame, power, and the favor He has granted to David and to Israel. Second, it is a prayer of supplication that, on the face of it, seems somewhat strange: he is asking God to do what He has already promised that He will do.

This mode of supplication is the point that has particularly struck me with this prayer. It can be seen in other prayers (e.g. the prayer of Solomon at the dedication of the temple), as well in the way that Christ talked about prayer (“your Father knows the things you need before you even ask”). It leads me to this conclusion: prayer, rightly conceived and executed, is (frequently) asking God to do what He has already said He will do. For David, it was praying that God would fulfill His promise (effectively in those terms — “And now, O Lord God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken.” (2 Sam 7:25 ESV)). For Solomon and Elijah, it was clinging to the promises made through Moses at Sinai and asking God to act in accordance with them and with His nature.

For us today, conceiving of the supplicatory aspect of prayer in this way leads us to a few things. For one, when we pray for missions, evangelism, and discipleship, we should be praying about it in terms of God building His church. Funny, Jesus told His disciples that He would build His church. All we’re doing is asking Him to do what He said He would do. When we pray to have needs met (the “give us this day our daily bread” clause), we’re praying for what Jesus has already promised, namely, that our Father knows our needs and will supply them.

When we pray for holiness, we cling to the words in the letter of Paul to the Philippians, that He who began a work in us will bring it to completion, and that the Spirit is at work in us “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13b) — we are asking God to do what He is already doing.

We can extend this concept to include praying for what God has stated He intends and desires for His people. If we accept Augustine’s tenet that God enables what He commands, this too is asking God to do what He was already planning to do, even if we don’t have a particular explicit formulation of a promise to recite.

There may be examples of good, proper, and Biblically-precedented prayer which do not exactly fit this mold. But I think that it is a helpful way to think about prayer when we are trying to understand what it means to ask something of the omniscient God who already knows what we need and has already decided whether and how to provide what we request.