<p>5:15 <i>And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we obtain the requests we have asked of him</i>- John has just cited answered prayer as a proof that the Spirit dwells within us, progressively revealing His will so that our prayers are not so much hit and miss but coincide with His will. But there can still be a residual doubt as to whether prayer is being answered as we envisaged and requested. John therefore parallels &quot;He hears us&quot; with 'obtaining the requests we asked'. It is through possessing the Spirit, the Comforter, that we have the Lord 'doing' things in response to what we ask (Jn. 14:13,14; 15:7,16; 16:23-26- all a major emphasis). But the Lord's 'doing' in response may not be articulated in the terms we expected. The request literally, 'the ask' asked will be 'done'; but not always as we expect.</p>