Sola negotiates for a living. She is a commercial lawyer in Victoria Island, and she is very good at her job. She can sit across a boardroom table from a team of six and calmly take apart their position clause by clause. She knows when to concede a small point to win a large one. She knows that every agreement needs what lawyers call consideration: something of value given in exchange for something received. Nothing is free. Everything is a trade.
She told me that she did not notice how deeply that habit had shaped her prayer life until one ordinary Sunday in her father’s house.
Her father is a retired headmaster who lives alone in Abeokuta since her mother died. For years Sola drove up every second Sunday after church. She loved him, and she went faithfully. But she always arrived with a list. Pay the electricity bill. Check that he was taking his blood-pressure tablets. Speak to the gateman about the broken padlock. Call the plumber about the kitchen tap. Ask whether his pension had come in. She would move from task to task, and then, around five o’clock, she would kiss him goodbye and get back on the expressway before dark.
That particular Sunday the electricity went off shortly after she arrived. The generator had no fuel, and the filling station down the road had none either. Her phone died within the hour. There was no television, no laptop, no way to call the plumber. So, for want of anything else to do, she sat with her father on the veranda.
They sat there for nearly four hours. He told her stories she had never heard: about the year he taught in a village school with no roof, about the day he first saw her mother at a teachers’ training college dance, about what Sola had been like at four years old. They laughed. At one point they were both quiet for a long time, simply watching the street. When the light began to fade and she finally stood up to leave, he held her hand and said, “Thank you, my daughter. Today you visited me.”
On the drive back to Lagos, she cried most of the way. She realised that she had been visiting her father the way she visited a client. And then, with a deeper sting, she realised she had been visiting God the same way. Every prayer arrived with a list. And much worse than her visits to Abeokuta, many of her prayers came with an offer attached. Lord, if You give me this partnership, I will pay a double tithe for a year. If You heal my father’s blood pressure, I will join the hospital visitation team. If You sort out this case, I will never miss another Tuesday prayer meeting. She had been drafting term sheets with God.
What the disciples saw
Luke tells us how Jesus came to teach His disciples to pray:
And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Look at how the scene begins. “As he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray.” The request did not come from a sermon on prayer. It came from watching Jesus pray. Something about the way He spoke with the Father, and perhaps the way He looked when He came back, made His disciples want what He had.
The Gospels tell us repeatedly that Jesus withdrew to pray. “He withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed” (Luke 5:16). “In the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35). He went to be with His Father. His prayer life was the expression of a relationship, and the disciples could see it.
So when He answers their request, He begins with a relationship. “When ye pray, say, Our Father.” Before a single request is made, the person praying has been placed inside a family. And notice the order of what follows. The first half of the prayer is about God: His name, His kingdom, His will. Only then does it turn to our needs: daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance. Those needs are real, and Jesus wants us to bring them. But they come within a conversation that has already turned toward the Father Himself.
That is the shape of fellowship. A child who loves his father will certainly ask for things, and a good father wants him to. But the asking sits inside something much larger. The child wants to be with the father, to know him, to share his life. Negotiation reverses that order. It comes to the Father for the sake of the thing, and treats the relationship as the channel through which the thing is obtained.
The bargaining instinct
The Bible has a famous negotiator, and his story helps us see ourselves. Jacob’s whole early life was a series of deals. He bought his brother’s birthright for a bowl of stew, making sure to get the agreement under oath (Genesis 25:31-33). He obtained his father’s blessing by disguise. He later spent twenty years matching wits with his uncle Laban, who was an even sharper dealer than he was.
When Jacob first fled from home to escape his brother’s anger, he slept in the open with a stone for a pillow. That night God appeared to him in a dream of a ladder reaching to heaven, and gave him an extraordinary promise. God would give him the land. His descendants would be like the dust of the earth. All the families of the earth would be blessed through him. And then the most personal word of all: “behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of” (Genesis 28:15).
Every one of those promises was unconditional. God attached no terms. He simply said what He would do. Now listen to Jacob’s response when he wakes:
And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
“If God will be with me.” God had just said, I am with thee. “And will keep me in this way that I go.” God had just said, I will keep thee. “So that I come again to my father’s house in peace.” God had just said, I will bring thee again. Jacob took God’s free promise and turned it back into a contract. If You do all this, then You will be my God, and then I will give You a tenth.
It is easy to be hard on Jacob. But this is exactly what the bargaining instinct does, and many of us have done it. God speaks a word of grace, and we respond by drafting conditions. We cannot quite believe that anything is free, so we add consideration to make it feel safe. We turn a gift into a transaction because transactions feel more reliable to us than love.
Notice also that the bargain did not make God more willing. He had already promised everything Jacob asked for. The deal added nothing on God’s side. Its only effect was on Jacob, who walked away thinking of God as a party to an agreement rather than a Father who had given His word.
A negotiator becomes a prince
Twenty years later Jacob was on his way home, and he was terrified. His brother Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men. Jacob did what he always did. He made a plan. He divided his household into two camps so that one might escape. He sent wave after wave of gifts ahead to Esau, hoping to soften him. “I will appease him with the present that goeth before me” (Genesis 32:20). Even in his prayer that night, there is a note of anxious calculation.
Then something happened that no negotiation could manage:
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him , and said, Tell me , I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
“And Jacob was left alone.” All his plans had been sent across the river. His gifts, his family, his flocks were on the other side. There was nothing left to offer and no one left to manage. And in that place, a Man wrestled with him until daybreak.
Jacob would not let go. “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.” Some people read this as the ultimate example of negotiating with God, but look at what changed. At Bethel, Jacob offered terms. At Peniel, he had nothing to offer. He was simply clinging. His hip was out of joint. He could no longer wrestle; he could only hold on. That is not bargaining. That is dependence.
Then the Man asked a strange question. “What is thy name?” The last time Jacob had been asked who he was, it was by his blind father Isaac, and Jacob had lied: “I am Esau thy firstborn” (Genesis 27:19). Now he told the truth. “Jacob.” The name meant heel-grabber, the one who supplants. In saying it, he was confessing who he had been.
“Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.” The negotiator received a new identity. And Jacob named the place Peniel, “for I have seen God face to face.” The man who had spent his life trading with God finally met Him. For the rest of his days he walked with a limp, and the limp was a mercy. It was the permanent sign that he had stopped dealing with God and started leaning on Him.
There is a Peniel moment for many believers. It usually comes when the plans have all been sent across the river and there is nothing left to bring. It is painful. But it is often where negotiation ends and fellowship begins.
PunchlineGod never needed your terms. The bargain only ever changed one party, and it was not Him.
Why we have nothing to bargain with
Paul closes his great argument about God’s mercy in Romans 11 with a question that ends all negotiation: “Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Romans 11:35-36). Negotiation assumes that each party has something the other wants. But what could we offer God that did not come from Him first? Our money, our time, our gifts, our breath, our very ability to make a promise, all of it is “of him.”
The book of Acts records a man who tried to negotiate with God’s power. Simon, a sorcerer in Samaria, saw the apostles lay hands on believers and offered them money to receive the same ability. Peter’s answer was blunt: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” (Acts 8:20). God’s gifts are gifts. They cannot be bought, whether the currency is money, service, fasting or promises of future good behaviour.
Someone may ask about vows. Did not Hannah make a vow when she prayed for a son (1 Samuel 1:11)? She did, and God answered her. But look at what she was doing. She was not offering God a bribe. She was dedicating the very thing she was asking for. Her request and her worship were the same act: if You give me a son, he will be Yours. That is very different from saying, if You give me what I want, I will finally start doing what I should already be doing. Hannah’s vow flowed from devotion. Bargaining flows from distrust.
Scripture also warns about hasty words before God. “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2). The tragic story of Jephthah, who made a rash vow before battle and lived to regret it bitterly (Judges 11:30-39), stands in Scripture as a warning about what happens when people try to secure God’s help with promises they have not thought through.
Above all, in the New Covenant the terms have already been settled. On the night before His death, Jesus took the cup and called it “the new testament in my blood” (Luke 22:20). A covenant ratified in the blood of God’s Son does not need a counter-offer from us. We come into it as sons and daughters, not as negotiating parties. Our obedience, generosity and service are real and important. But they are the response of children to a Father who has already given everything, not the price of His attention.
What fellowship actually means
The New Testament word for fellowship is koinonia. It means sharing something in common, participation, partnership in a shared life. It was used of business partners, of marriage, of friends who held their lives in common. John uses it to describe the heart of the Christian faith:
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
“Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” John had walked with Jesus for three years. He had leaned on His chest at the Last Supper. And he says that this same fellowship, this shared life with the Father and the Son, is now open to every believer. Paul says the same: “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). You were not merely called to receive benefits from Jesus. You were called into fellowship with Him.
NuggetAnd John tells us the purpose: “that your joy may be full.” Fellowship with God is the deepest joy available to a human being.
Scripture gives us striking pictures of this kind of relationship. “The LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11). Abraham “was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). And Jesus said to His disciples, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Friends do not negotiate with each other. They talk. They share what is on their hearts. They enjoy each other’s company. Sometimes they ask for help, and sometimes they simply sit together.
Jesus even uses the picture of a shared meal. “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). Those words were written to a lukewarm church, but the picture is beautiful. In the ancient world, to eat together was the deepest sign of friendship. Jesus is not knocking to collect payment. He wants to come in and eat with you.
That is what prayer is at its heart. It is the place where that shared life is expressed and enjoyed. Requests belong in it, just as they belong in any close relationship. But they are not the reason for it.
One thing have I desired
David understood this. He was a king with enormous needs and responsibilities: armies, enemies, a kingdom, a complicated family. Yet listen to what he says he wants most:
One thing have I desired of the LORD , that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD , and to enquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD . Hear, O LORD , when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst , Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD , will I seek.
“One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after.” Out of everything David could have asked for, the one thing was this: to dwell in the house of the Lord, “to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.” He wanted God Himself. He wanted to look at Him and learn from Him.
Notice that David still has troubles in this psalm. He speaks of enemies, of the time of trouble, of crying out for mercy. “Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.” Fellowship does not mean we stop bringing our needs. But look at the next verse. “When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek.” God invited David to seek His face, and David responded. Not just His hand, what He could give. His face, who He is.
Jesus said something similar in the home of Martha and Mary. Martha was busy serving, and frustrated that her sister was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to Him. Jesus answered, “But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). Martha’s service was not wrong. But in that moment, Mary had understood what the visit was for.
There is a difference between seeking God’s hand and seeking His face. The hand gives things. The face is the person. A negotiator only ever seeks the hand. Fellowship seeks the face, and finds that the hand is open too.
Asking within fellowship
None of this means we should stop asking. Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread. Paul tells us to let our requests be made known to God in everything. The psalms are full of honest, specific, sometimes desperate requests. “Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8). Pouring out your heart includes your needs, your fears, your complaints and your hopes.
The question is not whether we ask but how. In fellowship, the request is brought to a Father who already knows. “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:8). You do not need to persuade Him that the need is real or make an offer attractive enough to secure His interest. You tell Him because He is your Father and you share your life with Him.
Look at how Paul prays for the Ephesians:
For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
This is a prayer full of asking. Paul asks for strength, for Christ to dwell in their hearts, for them to grasp the immense dimensions of Christ’s love, for them to be filled with all the fulness of God. Yet there is not a trace of bargaining in it. He bows his knees “unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” He asks “according to the riches of his glory,” not according to what the Ephesians have earned. And the heart of his request is that they would know the love of Christ. Paul’s great petition is for deeper fellowship.
That is what happens to asking when it comes from relationship. You still ask for the job, the healing, the provision, the wisdom. But you also find yourself asking for the Father Himself: to know Him better, to sense His love, to walk more closely with Him. And you can ask freely, without terms, because the relationship is secure.
Practising fellowship
PunchlineHow do we move from negotiation to fellowship in practice? Here are some simple ways that have helped many believers.
Begin by turning toward God before you turn toward your list. Spend the first few minutes of prayer simply acknowledging Him. Thank Him for who He is. Read a short passage of Scripture and let it tell you something about Him. You do not need to rush to the requests. They will still be there.
Learn to be quiet. Some of the deepest moments of fellowship involve very few words. Sola’s four hours on the veranda included long silences, and they were among the best parts. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Silence in God’s presence is not wasted time.
Talk to Him through the day. Fellowship is not confined to a morning appointment. In the seventeenth century a lay brother in a Paris monastery, known as Brother Lawrence, spent years working in the kitchen. He became known for what he called the practice of the presence of God: speaking to God simply and continually while he cooked and washed pots. His conversations were later gathered into a little book that has encouraged believers for over three hundred years. You can do the same in the danfo, at your desk, in the market, or while you wash the plates.
Notice when you start bargaining. When you hear yourself say, “Lord, if You do this, I will...”, stop. Ask yourself what you are afraid of. Usually it is the fear that God will not help unless He gets something in return. Bring that fear to Him honestly, and then make the request again, without the terms.
Let your obedience be a response, not a payment. If you want to serve on the hospital visitation team, wonderful. Do it because you love God and love the sick. If you want to give generously, do it gladly. But do not use these things as currency. Offer them freely, as children who are grateful for everything they have already been given.
And sometimes, end your prayer without asking for anything at all. Simply say, “Thank You for being with me.” That sentence may feel strange at first. Many of us have never prayed a prayer that did not try to close a deal. But it is one of the surest signs that prayer is becoming fellowship.
Sola still drives up to Abeokuta every second Sunday. She still pays the electricity bill and checks on the blood-pressure tablets and calls the plumber when the tap leaks. Those things matter, and her father is grateful for them. But now she does them after they have sat on the veranda. “The list can wait an hour,” she says. “My father cannot wait for ever.”
Her prayer life has changed in the same way. She told me that she now begins most mornings with what she calls “sitting on the veranda.” She reads a psalm, thanks the Father for something specific, and stays quiet for a few minutes before she says anything else. The requests still come. She has a demanding job and a father who is getting older, and she brings both to God every day. But the term sheets are gone. “I found an old prayer journal last month,” she said, “full of offers I had made to God. I laughed and then I cried. He never needed any of them. He just wanted me to come and sit with Him.”
That is the invitation for you too. You do not need to negotiate. The terms were settled at the cross, and they were settled in your favour. Your Father is not across a boardroom table. He is on the veranda, and He is glad you came. Bring your list, by all means. But sit with Him first.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Look back over your recent prayers. How many of them included an “if... then” offer to God? What do those offers reveal about how you see Him?
- Jacob turned God’s unconditional promise at Bethel into a contract. Where have you done something similar with a promise of God?
- What is the difference between seeking God’s hand and seeking His face? Which has characterised your prayer life most?
- How does Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19 show asking without bargaining?
- What would “sitting on the veranda” with God look like in your daily routine?
This Week
This week, begin each time of prayer with at least five minutes of fellowship before you make any request. Read Psalm 27:4-8 or 1 John 1:1-4, thank God for something specific about who He is, and spend a minute in silence. Then bring your requests, but notice any “if You do this, I will...” language and remove it. On at least one day this week, end your prayer without asking for anything, simply saying, “Father, thank You for being with me.” Write down what you notice.
A Prayer
Father, thank You that You have called me into fellowship with Your Son. Forgive me for the times I have come to You like a negotiator, drafting terms and offering You things that were already Yours. Thank You that the covenant has been settled in the blood of Jesus and that I have nothing to bargain with and nothing to fear. Teach me to seek Your face and not only Your hand. Let my prayer be a place of shared life, where I can speak freely, listen quietly, and enjoy Your presence. I bring You my needs because You are my Father, and I bring You myself because You want me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.