Paul is reaching for language and running out of it. Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. He stacks the words because none of them individually will hold the idea.
We usually read this as encouragement to ask bigger. That is not quite it. The point is not that God grants larger requests, it is that the ceiling was never set by our requests in the first place.
Then comes the phrase people skip. According to His power that is at work within us. The measure is not our imagination. It is something already operating, already present, already running quietly whether or not we can feel it.
That reframes a small prayer. A modest request does not restrict God to a modest answer, and a bold one does not obligate Him to a spectacular one.
Ask plainly for what you actually need. You are not the constraint here.
