The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing brought the world to China’s door. Amid all the culture on display, one Chinese oddity was minimized a bit. They talked about it some, because one thing that was really odd were the food vendor menus.

The Chinese government issued a 170-page booklet that gave English names and descriptions to Chinese meals. There wasn’t anything about the food itself that needed hiding. It was the meals’ literal English translations that were a bit strange.

The spicy delight Mapo Tofu was previously named by its literal translation, "bean curd made by a pock-marked woman." While the adventurous diner sampled beef and ox tripe in chili sauce, few if any would have opted for its namesake, "husband and wife’s lung slice."

An American ex-pat in Japan started a humorous web site documenting public postings of English mishaps. Whether typos or just literal translations that didn’t work, the results made for confusing and comedic English.

A fire extinguisher sits below a sign that reads "hand grenade." I guess if the flames don’t get you, the explosion will. An anti-loitering post warns "Dying right here is strictly prohibited." I guess if you walk three blocks down to the café, you’re no doubt gladly welcome to die there. A Shanghai subway placard tells travelers how to handle the pickpocket threat: "If you are stolen, call the police at once."

While such typos are innocent and funny, some miscues carry significant consequences. In 1991, a single mis-keyed character of computer code left more than 12 million phone customers without service. DSC Communications and Bell Systems pinned the East and West Coast outages on just one minuscule typo.

In 2005, a Japanese stockbroker intended to sell one share of J-Com for 610,000 yen but switched his numbers and sold 610,000 shares for one yen each. Covering that gaff cost his investment bank $224 million.

But the "Wicked Bible" offers us the most scandalous — or scandal-making — typo of all time. In 1631, a London printing house produced copies of the KJV Bible with a creative commandment: "Thou shalt commit adultery." Thus, the version became known as the "Wicked Bible."

Some typos draw chuckles. Some draw large checks. Some are just downright scandalous. But all of them have countermeasures. We’ve created blotters, erasers, White-Out, correction ribbon, the backspace key and spell checkers. We have careers for curmudgeons of correction — people we call editors and proofreaders. Typos will happen, but we try really hard to catch them before they go public.

Reading today’s text, some may wonder what went wrong. Read carefully Paul’s astounding prayer. Some will wonder if Paul didn’t have a typo here somewhere; "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly more than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever."

Look at it again: far more – abundantly — than all we can ask — or think. Let’s take a closer look at this part of the text, and at the entire text.

Paul’s entire life was in service of the gospel. Notice I said Paul. We won’t count his time as Saul against him. He made spiritual mysteries clear. He suffered to make Christ known to the Ephesians.

"For this reason," Paul can pray for them passionately and specifically. He offers one of the most beautiful prayers in Scripture. From what we know about the Ephesians, these requests were for everything they needed but didn’t know to want. Things like:

Impassioned friends trashed a rooftop to bring their buddy to Jesus. A soldier knew Jesus could heal from a distance. A prostitute crashed the party of a bunch or religious leaders to worship Christ. Somebody once said; if our expectations are small, we will seldom be disappointed. If we ask small and imagine small, we can expect small.

The second potential problem is that our imagination may be in great shape, which can lead to unmet expectations. Remember how Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "Your kingdom come; your will be done"? Hours away from death on the cross, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, "Yet, not my will but yours be done."

Imagine anything. Ask big. But always remember that for the sincere follower of Christ, "yours" trumps "mine." We can ask big, but while God is omniscient and omnipotent, we aren’t. We don’t always perceive God at work. We don’t have the foresight to see the best answers where we don’t expect them or when we don’t want them.

In Joshua 3, the Israelites are finally set to enter the Promised Land. They have only the Jordan River in front of them. Trouble is, it was flood season, and the Jordan was ripping along at its full strength and breadth.

But as soon as the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant faithfully stepped into the river, the Jordan "piled up in a heap a great distance away at a town called Adam." Archaeologists guess that the city of Adam may have been 20 miles upstream. In other words, God was doing something huge, but nobody could see it happening. They saw only the results downriver.

Pastor and author Brian Jones says it wonderfully: "God is always at work upstream in our lives." God exists outside of our five senses, and he often works outside of them as well. We can’t see it, touch it or hear it. Yet … until we can see, touch and hear, we imagine. We dream.

Hopefully, this passage moves us to prayer. Paul prays big to a big God. And the implication for us is to pray big to that same big God as well.

Sometimes it’s hard to wrap our heads around the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that Paul readily admits surpasses knowledge.

It’s hard to understand what would make the Son of God leave the glory of heaven to come to this world, become one of us, and to live a perfect life and then allow wicked men to kill him on a cross. It’s hard to understand how God could love so many sinful people that much.

But He does.

It’s just part of who God is. God is love and by the death and resurrection of Christ, the door of heaven and the promise of eternal life is held out to all who believe. We are empowered to live each day in the absolute assurance that Jesus died to pay for all of our sins and that when we die, we will go to the place he promised to prepare for each and every one of us.

People spend a lot of time speculating on what heaven will be like. We get glimpses in Scripture, but I have a feeling that even if we had a detailed description, we wouldn’t be able to comprehend it. Just remember, if we can imagine it, God can exceed it.

And the same applies to our prayers. Prayer is like the fun and challenge of climbing trees as kids. If our prayers don’t feel like we’re stretching out on a limb, we’re just sitting on the ground. It’s safe but not much fun. That’s just a typo in our faith. And like all other typos, we want to catch and correct them before they make a mess of things.

May the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of God for each of you empower you through the Holy Spirit to see the typos in your response to what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Amen.