Ask God, Again
Many of us have stopped praying.
Like earnestly and fervently praying and believing God for the specific, the secret, the unspoken, the unimaginable, the absolute impossible.We've stopped asking God for healing, for deliverance, for salvation. We've quit writing down our dreams, our goals, and our heart's deepest desires. We've found ways to sidestep prayer in conversations with friends and family. We don't even want to say "grace" before a meal. For some of us, the idea of going to church and being in an environment of prayer feels like walking into our own undoing—we know it will expose the truth we've been working so hard to avoid: that sometimes, our avoidance of prayer is really our avoidance of faith.Honestly, many of us have good reasons (emphasis on reason and logic) why we've stopped praying, why we've stopped believing. Life has simply worn us down.Maybe your reason is grief.
You've lost a loved one, or a house, or a dream. The pain feels too raw, too fresh, and too overwhelming to bring to God. What if He doesn't comfort you the way you need? What if the silence feels louder than your sobs?Maybe your reason is disappointment.
Too much time has passed and you're tired of the angst that comes with hoping for something you don't actually believe is coming. You've been burned by your own expectations, and frankly, you're exhausted from the emotional whiplash of hope deferred.Maybe your reason is utter disbelief.
The thing you really want to ask God for seems impossible, and you wonder if He would do it anyway. Your faith feels smaller than a mustard seed, and you're not even sure you want to put God in a position where He might have to say no.For far too long, we've let our reason, our logic, and our lament exist without a counter, a response, a balance on the scales. We've let life beat the hope out of us, and instead of engaging in faith through prayer, we skate along our days, lifeless and hopeless, waiting for something good to happen to us. We've become passive and mute.But this isn’t our tradition.
This isn't the faith that was handed to us. This isn't the story of our mothers and grandmothers. And it's definitely not the story we find in Scripture:We find Hannah praying desperately for a child, pouring out her soul before the Lord until the priest thought she was drunk.We know Esther fasted and prayed before approaching the king, knowing it could cost her life.We see Mary and Martha making an appeal to Jesus to save their brother Lazarus.We even find Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane, asking God to find another way other than the cross, sweating drops of blood in anguish.
Here’s the harsh, yet beautiful reality:
In prayer, results may vary, but God’s goodness doesn’t.
Look at how God responded.
Look at the faithfulness woven through every single story. Look at the God who shows up, even when His answers don't look like what we expected.Hannah got her son—Samuel, who became one of Israel's greatest prophets and judges. Her desperate, soul-pouring prayer didn't just give her a child; it gave the nation a leader.Esther's fast and prayer gave her favor with the king, and she saved her entire people from genocide. Her courage in approaching the throne literally changed the course of history.Mary and Martha watched their brother die, but then they witnessed Jesus call Lazarus back to life after four days in the tomb. Their appeal didn't prevent death, but it showcased resurrection power that would echo through eternity.And Jesus? His prayer in Gethsemane wasn't answered the way His humanity hoped—He still went to the cross. But that "no" became the greatest "yes" in human history, opening the door for every single one of us to have eternal life.
God answered every single prayer. Not always with a "yes," not always immediately, not always in ways that made sense in the moment. But He answered with purpose, with power, and with a plan bigger than any of them could have imagined.The goal of our prayers isn't to pigeonhole God into a specific outcome, but our expectation should be that He will answer us, one way or another. Some days He raises the dead, and others He rolls A stone in front of a grave—but what we can be sure of is He always answers, He always has a plan, and He always resurrects some aspect of us.
So girl, get up—it's time for you to ask God, again. It's time for you to engage your faith again. It's time to muster (pun intended) up the faith, again.Why?
Because faith is central to our relationship with God.
Not just central—all encompassing. It's the foundation, the front door, and everything in between for all time. Scripture tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). Faith isn't just a nice addition to our spiritual life—it's the very currency of heaven. And prayer? Prayer is faith in action. When we pray, we're essentially saying, "God, I believe You're real, I believe You care, and I believe You have the power to move." Every prayer is a declaration of faith, whether we feel faithful or not.Because people are watching.
Lost people. Hopeless people. Forgotten people. They need to see what it looks like when someone still believes God shows up. Jesus said, "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Our prayer life is part of that light. When we pray boldly and publicly—when we ask for prayer requests, when we share testimonies, when we're not ashamed to bow our heads in restaurants—we're showing a watching world that we serve a God who's still active, still listening, still answering. Your grandmother's prayers didn't just change your life; they showed everyone around her what unwavering faith looks like. That legacy matters. That witness matters.Because hope and joy are inextricably linked.
Joy is waiting for you in the ask. There's something beautiful about the act of asking itself—it acknowledges that you still believe Someone is listening. The psalmist wrote, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13). Notice the connection: hope leads to joy, and joy overflows into more hope. When we stop asking, we cut off this beautiful cycle. But when we dare to ask again—even when our faith feels shaky—we open ourselves up to experience God's goodness in ways we never expected. Sometimes the joy isn't in getting what we asked for; it's in remembering that we have a God who cares enough to listen to our heart's cry at 2 AM.Girl, revival is waiting for us in our prayers. Renewal is waiting for us in our prayer life.. Refreshing is waiting for us, if we just ask. When we pray, there's a spark, brief and luminous, that has the power to ignite an ever-burning flame in our souls. When we pray, we're abiding in faith because we believe—dare I say we KNOW—the God over our situation is listening to us.So, it's time for you to ask God, again. It’s time for you to pray like you’ve never prayed before. It’s time for you to ask Him for that thing you're scared to utter aloud again, the thing you think He's forgotten about, the thing you've given up on. Ask Him, again.Our faith and the faith of generations following us hinges on our open dependency and thirst for God in all things and for all things. We've got to show up and model what it looks like to depend on God. We've got to be transparent about the prayers that have and haven't been answered yet. We've got to show what it looks like when God answers a prayer in a way we didn't expect—and our own disappointment or joy. We've got to show the world a relationship, not a slot machine.