Making bold requests to God has always been an area of struggle for me. While I have no problem asking for help in my attitude or that He protect me in my travels, asking for life altering things causes me anxiety. I feel both conflicted and stressed when I desire to ask Him to make an impactful shift in my life, such as in finances or creating opportunities to grow in my passions, because it feels disrespectful. Not only does it feel disrespectful to seemingly order God around, it also feels like I have no trust in His plan. Because these were my views of asking boldly, I simply never prayed those prayers. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that a pressing to open my mouth and ask really hit me. The beliefs of distrust and disrespect held me back before, but now, beginning to explore the truth about bold requests, I wanted to share this with you. My hope is that you get the confidence to ask God soon! Blessings and breakthroughs are waiting for you to open your mouth.

“Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in My name, I will do it.” – John 14:13-14

This particular scripture was placed on my heart a few weeks ago when the initial pressing to ask came over me. Without forcing itself on me, the scripture laid there waiting for me to interact with it. I heard it. I read it. I smiled at it. I didn’t, however, act upon it. While the scripture was beautiful, full of Jesus’ promise to glorify the Father through our requests, it sounded too good to be true.  Jesus starting with “whatever you ask” immediately made me cringe. How could Jesus say “whatever” as if we actually know what’s best for our lives? If I asked for something crazy, I thought, would God still honor it? Were there rules and guidelines to this? Were there any limits I needed to know about? It felt like a trick or a scam. Jesus wasn’t specific enough. Besides, who was I to even approach God like that? Wasn’t I, as a Christian, supposed to just trust Him and let Him do His thing?

Believing I had a right to approach God with requests was my biggest hurdle. It wasn’t that I thought I wasn’t His child. It wasn’t that I was afraid of God. To me, it went back to respect. As a mere human, it felt rude and extremely cocky to think I could just tell God what I needed Him to do. Again, why would He even listen to me? I wasn’t on His level and I definitely didn’t know myself or my life course better than He did. Sit down and shut up, I thought. God had it covered just fine without my two cents.

“In Christ and through faith in Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” – Ephesians 3:12

“Until now, you have asked nothing in My name. Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” – John 16:24

These two scriptures above serve as rebuttals to my thought process. Ephesians 3:12 speaks directly to the belief of inadequacy and lack of rights. It is true that I am a flawed human whose sin makes me unworthy to stand face to face with God. It’s also true, however, that I have a new status because of Jesus. Having faith in Christ and the debt He paid for us on the Cross, I do have the right to approach God freely and confidently. I don’t have to be scared or feel unworthy. I no longer need to shy away from asking Him because I don’t know everything like He does. He told me to come boldly before Him. As His child, His job is to take care of me and lead me.

John 16:24 speaks to what we gain when we use our right to ask. Not only do we have a promise to receive what we are requesting, we also have a promise that our joy will be full. The promise of joy particularly touched me because joy can get pushed aside by life’s lows. Specifically, when we feel like our lives aren’t everything they could be, our joy tends to diminish. Joy grows as the feeling of His constant presence grows.  Asking allows us to be in fellowship with God, to grow in our knowledge of Him, and to see His faithfulness at work. That’s what He’s desiring for us.

“If you remain in Me and My words in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” – John 15:7-8

Remember when I told you that the “whatever you ask” in John 14:13-14 stressed me out? God provided a response to that as well. Requests do indeed have guidelines. Jesus precedes “ask whatever you wish” with “if you remain in Me and My words in you”. What I learned from this is that as you continue to grow in God and seek to do His will, your desires naturally begin to line up with His. You won’t be asking for outlandish things when your heart is set on glorifying Him. Everything that you begin to ask will be for His glory and His purpose. He will be delighted to give you your heart’s desires because it was His plan for you all along.

I share all of this with you simply to encourage you to open your mouth and boldly start making your requests known. The devil is set on making us think we’re too shy or too unworthy. On the contrary, God is excited for you to approach Him and He tells us to do so with freedom and confidence, no matter our history. We are redeemed because of Christ and we need to start acting like it, in every area of our lives. Let’s start today by boldly approaching His throne and receiving the promises He has been waiting to give us.

Be bold about it, twentysomethings! ❤️