Bold Yet Humble Prayers...

Tonight at my small group we were discussing The Circle Maker, which is a fantastic book about prayer... We watched an accompanying video, and then talked about various things that stood out to us, that we were struggling to understand or were just excited about. One of the biggest things we settled on discussing is, how do you pray bold expectant prayers, yet remain humble? What does that look or even sound like?.. Does that offend God?

We mulled over these questions, and did not necessarily come to any concrete answers...

How do we pray humbly before our God, yet approach with boldness?..
Is it even Biblical to approach with boldness?..
Is it even Biblical to pray expecting God to answer?...
Is it a cop out to say "if it is your will..." at the end?..
Is that our "back door" way of saving our faith so we have an explanation in case God did not answer?

HOW do you pray boldly to your Lord, Father, Savior, yet humbly?

There is a scripture in James 4 that talks about how we have not because we ask not.... and how even when we do ask we do not have because we do not have pure motives... How does that fit into it all?

Are there really prayers and miracles that God does not answer or grant because we do not pray for them?...

How does this fit into God knowing everything, yet granting us free will?... Is it really that dependent on us to pray in order for God to move?...

I definitely have a few thoughts on these things.. and I have a few vague passages of scripture I am going to have to go refresh my memory on... But, I think for right now, I need to mull over this and... Pray about it some more...

Tomorrow, we start our small group's 21 days of prayer. I am excited, I am amazed at the things that happened in January when I did this prayer challenge... so, I am looking forward to the things God is going to do this time. However, mostly I am looking forward to becoming even more acquainted with the voice of God in the next 21 days. I mean, I am looking for some definite answers to things going on in my life, some direction and guidance.. and some miracles to happen. But, mostly I just want to feel to a much greater degree the familiarity to God's voice in my life.

I want to learn what it means, what it looks like to pray bold, yet humble prayers before my God.