I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:16-19

I was speaking with a friend recently and the subject of other people’s shortfalls came up. I imagine that if we put together a list of the people we knew, we could quickly compile a ‘wish list’ about the things we would like to change about them. 

It could be that we wish this person was more patient, that person didn’t put others down, this person did not condemn themselves so much, that person didn’t blame others and took more responsibility instead, this person would stop being so condescending towards others, that person would stop being a door mat, this person would be more loving towards his husband / wife / children... and on.

If we are honest with ourselves (this is certainly the case with me), there is a part of us, (which is hopefully dying), that would like to go to God with this list and have all of these things changed at the click of our fingers.

But what does Paul pray for?  He prays that the people he is writing to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

Why?

I believe that the more we come to a realisation of the love of Christ, the less our condescending, blaming, self condemning and everything else on our list becomes an issue for others and ourselves.  Those things are there because of an absence of the realisation of the love of Christ.

As we come to begin to realise the love of Christ, we will begin to drop those things as a consequence, because the love of Christ is the answer to all things.

I like the words from John Woolley in ‘I Am With You’:  ‘As you keep close to Me, know that we are one...  This means you are allied to My purposes, that you share in My working.  Remember to see us as united...  to know that there is an influence from us when with others.’

As we keep close to God, His influence will work through us.  People will see the love of Christ through us.  We no longer need a wish list about the people we know.  We only need to stay close to God and He will do the work He intends to do in the way He intends to do it.
Woolley goes on to say:
‘You can therefore, rely upon the influence, rather than upon striving.’ 

Carrying a wish list about the people around us can become a real struggle.  Wishing that people were different can lead to striving.  Being close to God leads to influence.  It takes our focus away from the wrongs of the people on the list and onto the total sufficiency of Christ.

The difference between Paul’s prayer for people coming to know the love of Christ and us having a wish list is that people can stop the particular behaviour on our wish list without knowing of the love of Christ.  That may be pleasing to us, but it does not glorify God.

Trying to get people to conform to the standards we would like is to lead a life in chains.
To come to the realisation that we all have fallen short and that Christ is our only hope is totally freeing.
When we see people we know doing wrong, it should have the effect of reminding us of our own hopelessness without Christ.  It is a prompt to remind us of our goal.  Woolley describes our goal as:
‘You must keep your eyes upon the goal - which is the possession of Myself, both by yourself and by others.’

None of us are capable of coming off other people’s wish lists.  That is the realisation for us to have.  It prompts us towards our goal:  The possession of Christ by ourselves and others.

We are not to hope that people change their ways because that can lead to striving towards having people behave in a way that makes our lives more bearable – and we are not God.

We are to hope we and others see more and more of the love of Christ, which is the core issue.  This is pleasing to God.  This glorifies God.  He is the answer to all things.