In his book, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, D.A. Carson examines the prayers of Paul to learn how we should pray.  One of the prayers he considers is 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12:

"…we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

What does it mean that God would make you "worthy of his calling"? Dr. Carson explains:

"He prays that Christians might become worthy of all that it means to be a Christian, of all that it means to be a child of the living God, of all that it means to be worthy of the love that brought Jesus to the cross…  This is one of the themes to which Paul returns again and again.  We are to grow up into Christian maturtiy.  In a strange paradox, Paul is constantly telling people, in effect, to become what they are; that is, since we already are children of God because of his free grace to us in Christ, we must now become all that such children should be.  God has graciously called us; now we must live up to that calling.  That cannot mean less than that we should become increasingly holy, self-denying, loving, full of integrity, steeped in the knowledge of God and his Word, delighted to trust and obey our heavenly Father." (p. 54)

In the context of this chapter, Dr. Carson is not only exhorting us to "be what we are," he is showing us how Paul prayed for the Thessalonian Christians.  Paul's emphasis in prayer should shape ours, and we should pray for our families and friends that they to would "be what they are," that God would make them worthy of his calling, that the name of the Lord Jesus may be glorified in them.

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