"14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
Ephesians 3:14-21
What follows in 14 reveals another aspect of this tribulation - his travail in prayer for the church in Ephesus, that they might 'inherit' all that was theirs in the gift of God's Son. We may recall how Paul speaks, in writing to the Galatians, of travailing in birth till Christ was formed in them, and this is the sort of travail indicated here in the phrase 'I bow my knees …'. We have already seen in chapter 1 his concern to pray his readers into a full understanding and experience of their riches in Christ, and here is another example. And real prayer, with the discipline involved in maintaining it, and continuing in it faithfully and steadfastly, is travail indeed.
The prayer itself has four clauses, but commentators are divided as to how to interpret them. One interpretation is that the four clauses are each a prayer: 'I pray that ... and that ... and that … and that …". Another is that the prayer itself stops at 17a, and that what follows is the consequence of the prayer. Another still is to take it as follows: 'Strengthened with might' is further defined in the next clause, in the thought of Christ indwelling our hearts; the result of this indwelling is that we are rooted and grounded in love; with the consequence that we are enabled to comprehend the four dimensions of redeeming love; the final outcome being filled with all the fullness of God. But on any interpretation, there is a rich glory shining in the prayer, which surely makes it one of the greatest utterances in all the New Testament.