We can’t break strongholds without diving deep with God and telling Him the truth of everything going on inside of us. Without being open and honest with Him, we spend too much time embroidering the lies of the evil one into the fabric of our souls. For example, we often perceive God as shaking His finger at us from a distance, rather than drawing close to Him in love. The more we grow to trust God’s love, the more vulnerable our prayers become. We express our deepest questions not only to God about who He is, but, over time, we trust we can be honest about everything we are struggling with in conversation with Him. By asking courageous questions in prayer, God revealed to me that I lived as a Liability for Him—a lie I believed. God helped me see He wanted me to live as His Liberator, assisting others to find freedom from the lies keeping them in bondage, too. In His truth, we find freedom.
Are You Longing to Find Freedom?
I let my questions pile up and percolate in the depths of my heart instead of pursuing answers with God. Refusing to explore the questions—hiding them away, ignoring them—warped my perception of Him and Christianity.
If only I had asked the questions.
If only I had sought God in love.
If only you, dear reader, could learn from my mistakes.
This is what I hope for you—that you’ll have courage to meet with God in honest prayer, and in doing so, really know Him and His great love for you. You are truly and deeply loved by Him.
Ask and Receive
Find Rich Relationship with God Through Questions Found in Scripture
When studying a narrative passage of Scripture, a story, or a parable, one way to learn is to contemplate what it would be like to be in the story with the characters. This beautifully designed study is a creative way to step into the character’s shoes.
Ask and Receive is a fresh idea for spiritual growth. This Bible study will point to different stories in the Old and New Testaments in which questions are an integral part of the dialogue. A list of verses is clearly labeled for reflection and is linked to the character’s questions so the reader can dig into God’s Word to learn more.
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$5.00
Courageous Questions Story
“Hey, Lauri, would you mind retracing our drive from yesterday while I look for something?” I
asked while clicking my seatbelt into place. “What did you lose?” Her eyes were scanning the
road as she pulled out of the driveway. It took a minute for me to answer. I didn’t want to
burden my friend. The weekend at her parents’ lake home in Door County Wisconsin already
felt like a blessing I could never return. “I didn’t lose anything. I glanced out the car window
yesterday and, well, I saw a statue in the process of being carved. I’d like to take a picture
beside it.” “Where did you see it?” “I don’t know,” I said. “I saw it in a churchyard, but I have no
idea where we were at the time. It might be a Catholic church, but I’m not sure.”
“Sounds fun!” She turned off the engine and pulled out her phone. “Let’s look online at the
different churches we passed as we toured the peninsula yesterday afternoon.”
Soon we were off to pursue a half-carved statue of someone I didn’t recognize at an unknown church in a town I couldn’t name. I wanted to see it again, to be near it. I felt nervous explaining to my friend how desperately I desired a picture of myself standing next to the unfinished work of art. A few weeks before the trip, I began a master’s program at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul, Minnesota. I served as a church staff member in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for seventeen years and at a church in Aberdeen, South Dakota, a year before that. Stepping into school when I was nearly fifty years old felt exciting and intimidating all at the same time.
In a spiritual formation class, God reoriented my mind in a life-changing way. Because a picture paints a thousand words, the half-finished work perfectly articulated what had taken me years to understand. The moment the car passed the statue the day before, my heart jumped in my chest. I chose to stay silent, but more and more, as the day progressed, my mind and heart returned to the realization I needed a picture by that statue. My heart beat fast anticipating a framed photograph on my desk, a visual reminder that perfection is not the goal of Christianity.
For too long I set my eyes on perfection, and I knew how the continual reminder of the lifelong process of God’s work would be vital for my growth.
I want to help you learn to ask courageous questions to God in prayer. I discovered that asking courageous questions supports a receive-and-process approach to sanctification which is opposite of what I once believed. In asking courageous questions of our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors, we have a way to receive God’s love and accept who we are while at the same time participate with God in the process of spiritual growth. Acceptance of God’s love begins spiritual transformation that moves beyond behavior management. Salvation is secure, but the lifelong process of internal change is work the Holy Spirit will accomplish over time with our participation in the process. If, like the old-me, you believe spiritual growth depends on your actions alone, become dependent upon the Father in a new way. Imagine Him at work day by day sculpting and molding you. As you learn who He is and who you are as His son or daughter, true change begins to take place in the relationship.
Michelangelo once said, “In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”
An unfinished statue—a work of art in progress—represents the idea of God at work in each of us to reveal who we already are as sons and daughters of God. Instead of asking God for courage, ask Him questions of courage, because courageous questions test the inner world and begin the process of change in Christ.
Courageous questions guide us. For example, we learn to ask God, “Why am I angry?” Or “Why am I afraid?” Courageous questions move us to a deeper relationship because the questions allow us to be vulnerable before God. The questions expose our inner world to Him and allow us to open up to Him in a new way. As we express our questions, we increase trust—we open up and let God in.
We may know intellectually that Jesus already dwells in us by His Spirit, but we need to experience a living faith in which the Spirit reveals God’s true character and His deep abiding love as we open ourselves to Him in honest prayer.
If you are searching for answers to why you aren’t growing spiritually,
I would love to help.
The world around us wants us to prove our worth, but God does not. God wants us to understand His love and love Him in return. If we feel like we need to perform for Him, we will neglect sitting with Him, spending time with Him in prayer and His word.
Sometimes unknowingly, we can let rules and religion take us down this pathway. We can turn worship into following rules and relationships into a place of proving our worth. I know because I did this too.
When I first became a Christian, I mistakenly thought this is what it meant to be a Christian. I took my background and this false idea that Christianity meant perfection, and I went full force into trying to become perfect all on my own. It is easy to do if we aren’t aware this is what we are doing.
Eventually, we crash. We look at what feels like a list of rules in front of us, and we decide we will never measure up.
Have you fallen into any of these traps in your own life?
Do you think you are acceptable to God?
The truth we must understand is that we are good enough not because of anything we do but because of Christ. We are good enough in Him. In Christ’s life, suffering, death, and resurrection, we are given a new life before God. When God looks at us, He looks at us through the work Jesus did on the cross. He sees our belief in His Son, and we are righteous not because of our works but because of our belief. He loves us with a deep and abiding love.
This journey led me to a deeper place of searching out the whys of my thoughts, feelings, and actions. Some examples of my why questions:
- Why do I perform for acceptance?
- Why do I live like I have to earn my place?
- Why do I work hard for the approval of others?
- Why do I feel less than others?
Taking time to discover our whys, opens a place for God to work in the innermost places of our heart.
What are your whys?
What courageous questions do you need to ask God?
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
Getting to the Root of WHY
I am a wrestler. No, not an actual wrestler where I face an opponent on a gym mat, but a why wrestler. I have spent much of my adulthood searching for the whys in my life.
Why do I behave this way?
Why do I feel the way I do?
Why do I keep repeating the same unhelpful patterns?
The questions create a pathway to healing and growth if taken to God in His Word and prayer because the answers guide change.
I would love to help you become a why wrestler too.
WHY?
Because as you wrestle with the whys of your thoughts, feelings, and actions, God will help you uncover the roots of your whys. As God guides you to the origins of your whys, you begin to change in Him, and change brings freedom.
I took this picture by a statue that was in process to remind me that I am in process too.