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Have you ever hesitated to talk to God because you thought you already knew what He was going to say? I have. Sometimes I avoid my journal because deep inside I’m expecting God to show me all that I’m doing wrong. That doesn’t really make me want to start my prayer journaling.

Other times, I just start writing what I feel like He’s doing wrong, so we can get all the enemy’s lies right out on the table. Last week, I wrote down why I felt like He hadn’t led me very well in a certain area of my life, and then His question popped into my mind: “What if I were to tell you that none of that was Me? Would you believe it?” That question caught me because I needed to hear what He actually wanted to say.

Maybe you hesitate to start praying sometimes too. You want to talk to God, but you’re already expecting the conversation to be about how you can do better. So you stay busy, talk to someone else, or do whatever feels easier, and put off your prayer time until you feel a little stronger.

If prayer feels dry and you hesitate to begin, it may not be because you don’t long for God’s presence. It may be because an atmosphere of constant Christian improvement has conditioned you to approach Him feeling like you have to measure up.

When the Christian Life Starts Feeling Like School

The school culture I was raised in was flooded with messages about doing your best and making the world a better place. If you didn’t have anything special that put you ahead of the other kids, you sometimes felt like you were behind.

A lot of the church culture I’ve experienced has that same school-like feeling. Because so much time in church is spent receiving teaching and information, we can start to feel like that information about the Bible matters more than our actual experiences with God Himself.

We look up to people who’ve made special accomplishments for God’s kingdom. But when it comes to the freedom, love, and joy we normal people are experiencing from God in everyday life, that doesn’t seem to get talked about as much.

Of course, our Bible teachers often don’t see us in daily life, so there isn’t much opportunity to talk about what God’s actually doing in our lives during the week. They teach groups, not individuals, so it’s up to us to apply the information they give us and then ask questions if we need help.

If we’re in a good small group, we have the chance to talk and pray about what God’s doing in our life. We realize that others share many of our struggles, and we can start to be honest about where we feel like we’re falling short.

But as long as we’re spending most of our time with other Christians constantly absorbing more information from the Bible, the integration of those principles into our lives can feel less important than filling our minds with reminders about how our Christian life should be. Can you see how all that constant learning might leave us feeling like we’re not measuring up to everything God’s showing us?

I Thought Biblical Information Was God’s Personal Voice

That reminds me of what Jesus said to the Laodicean church in Revelation 3:

“Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked, I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich…” -Revelation 3:17–18.

At some point I realized that I’d felt rich because I was gathering so much biblical knowledge, but I was actually quite poor when it came to having a two-way relationship with God. I wasn’t hearing Him speak personally to me about what He actually thought about my life. I was assuming all this information I was hearing from the Bible was His voice.

Once I realized God had His own personal thoughts about all the teaching I was learning, my prayer life changed. Until that point, I’d felt like there was a huge stack of changes God wanted to make in my life if I’d do my very best to cooperate.

Every time I heard another biblical principle that I wasn’t measuring up to, it felt like another way He wanted to change me. I was so happy when I finally realized that He was only leading me to make a few manageable changes, and a lot of the teaching I was hearing wasn’t even His desire for me at all.

I Was Running Both Sides of the Conversation

Before that happened, here’s how I usually prayed. I’d sit down to pray and start thinking about the biblical lifestyle I wanted to achieve. Then I’d start telling God about all the ways I wanted to measure up to His ideal.

In the process, I assumed He was showing me His love by giving me His insights to correct me and help me reach His ideals. But I eventually realized that I wasn’t always feeling loved when I came to my journal to get corrected.

By assuming I knew what God wanted to fix about me, I was actually running both sides of the conversation myself. If I really wanted a true conversation, I’d have to assume God had His own thoughts about all of this and give Him a chance to express them.

Being able to receive His actual point of view as I’m telling Him my thoughts has totally changed how I feel about interacting with Him.

“What If I Were to Tell You That None of That Was Me?”

Last week, I was writing honestly about feeling tired and weighed down. Underneath that was some pain and financial frustration.

I started thinking about the fact that God had been my Father from the beginning, long before I was old enough to understand money. He’d always known what I needed, and He’d always known how to provide for me.

But somehow, when I looked back at some of my experiences with making money, I was still acting like His provision depended on me learning to do things well enough, as though God had been patiently waiting for me to get it right. Underneath that was an even more painful thought: I expected that sooner or later, my Father was going to run out of patience.

Once I wrote that down, I felt like He asked me, “What if I were to tell you that none of that was Me? Would you believe it?” I wasn’t sure, so I wrote out why I wasn’t sure what to think. Then I asked Him, “What do You want me to know?”

The thought popped into my mind: “Remember when you first realized it wasn’t that hard?” I wrote, “Oh yeah. That was awesome. I’d totally forgotten about that.”

I remembered that feeling of relief I’d had when I first realized I didn’t have to reach some standard of financial competency before I could trust God to provide for me. Then I knew that God wasn’t showing me more things I needed to improve so that He’d finally find me delightful. He was just telling me how much He enjoyed me instead.

Try This in Your Prayer Journal

I’m sharing this with you so you can have these kinds of shifts in your prayer journaling too. We’re not only going to talk about this because I’m not just here to give you information. This is an experience.

First, name one barrier. Think about one thing that makes you hesitate to talk to God, and tell Him honestly how you feel about it.

Second, invite God to speak to you. Ask God what He wants you to know about this. Give Him a chance to have His own thoughts about what you’ve written.

Third, stop and listen. Imagine God the Father is sitting next to you, and notice what His voice might say. Don’t try to make it happen. Just notice what comes into your mind and write it down.

Last, let’s test it. Test the insights you got with your knowledge of biblical truth and your common sense. Would the God of the Bible say something like what you’ve written? Where does the Bible show Him thinking that way, or not thinking that way?

Of course, we don’t want to get into proof-texting, so if you want more help learning to test what you write, I explain the process in the Hearing God Starter Kit. You can get that free right now at Sophiculture.com/guide.

God’s Correction Happens Inside His Love

Now let me show you how I tested what I wrote last week. First John says, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” It also says, “We love Him because He first loved us” -1 John 3:1; 1 John 4:19.

First John gave me a foundation for testing what I’d heard. I knew His love for me as His daughter was the heart of the whole thing. The thought I was testing was that my Father was patiently waiting for me to finally figure out His provision.

Did this idea actually make sense with a Father’s heart? Once I realized that it didn’t, He brought back the freedom of knowing I didn’t have to measure up to a certain standard of figuring things out in order to know He would provide.

That’s especially interesting because earlier I mentioned Revelation 3, where the Laodiceans thought they already had all they needed, even though they were actually missing out. But when He talks about correcting this, He doesn’t just fill them in with stuff they don’t know.

He says,

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” And then He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” -Revelation 3:19–20.

I used to assume God’s correction meant me finding out what I needed to improve. But in this passage, hearing His voice and opening the door actually seems like part of the correction.

It’s like the rebuke is that their hearts are cold, and they don’t realize they’re missing out on rich fellowship with Him. He wants to solve that by inviting them to hear what He has to say directly and share a feast with Him.

Of course, enjoying His presence doesn’t mean being chastened doesn’t hurt. Sometimes opening the door means letting Him show us the pain we’ve been avoiding, the lies we’ve believed, or the ways we’ve tried to protect ourselves. We face those things with Him as we imagine being at the cross.

His correction may hurt because the barrier itself hurts, but it’s not because His love has cooled toward us. Those are two very different things.

For me, that’s reassuring. He’s not waiting for me to get right with Him before we can enjoy each other. He’s already at the door, ready to talk about whatever might be blocking me from feeling His love. The love is the most important thing to Him.

When You Feel Like You Don’t Measure Up

His correction happens inside a love that’s always working to break down every feeling of distance between us and Him. Our prayer journals are where He destroys anything that keeps us from recognizing how completely we’re loved and enjoyed, even in our weak and immature state.

Whether you feel like you’re not measuring up, or you don’t realize what you’re missing out on, He’s got the gold. So when you feel like your heart’s getting cool, bring all the barriers and lay them right out there on the table. He knows just how to warm you back up when you give Him space to talk.

Let’s Pray This

Thanks, Lord, that there’s no place I can go that I’m not loved and treasured by You. You’ll always know just how to get my attention and You’ll let me know when it’s time to make a change.

But what matters most to us right now is that You enjoy me fully, as Your immature child, like adoring fathers do. This week, let that sink in so deeply that I won’t hesitate at all to dive into our conversations together. Amen.

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Next Steps:

Get our free “Hearing God Starter Kit” and learn the journaling process at:

Sophiculture.com/guide

Get personalized support to build a thriving friendship with Jesus at:

Sophiculture.com/illumination