“Will You Even Pray About It?”

Sometimes the hardest prayers are the ones we refuse to pray.

In October 1997, our men’s group traveled to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to attend the Stand in the Gap gathering with hundreds of thousands of other men from across the country.

As the event began, the president of Promise Keepers said something that has stayed with me ever since:

“It is possible for you to be at the threshold of a life-changing experience but miss it altogether.”

I had no idea I was standing at one of those thresholds.

Later that day, a speaker asked us to kneel—or, if possible, to lie face down on the ground—and ask God to reveal any way we had sinned against our wives.

I’ll admit it. My first thought was, This doesn’t really apply to me. I hadn’t been unfaithful or abusive. But as I lay with my face in the dirt in front of the Smithsonian, God gently exposed something I hadn’t been willing to face.

After losing our six-month-old son, Brock, and then experiencing the miraculous birth of our daughter, Neale, Rebecca wanted to have another child.

I didn’t.

More accurately, I wasn’t even willing to pray about it.

I was afraid of walking through that kind of pain again, so I had quietly closed the door in my heart. When Rebecca would ask, “Are you praying about it?” my answer was no—not because I had sought God’s will, but because I didn’t want my mind changed.

As I lay there praying, I sensed God speak to my spirit:

“Your wife wants to have another baby, and you will not even pray about it.”

Those words humbled me.

I realized my unwillingness to pray wasn’t simply about fear. It was affecting my relationship with Rebecca, and it was affecting my relationship with God.

On the bus ride home, I shared the experience with the men from our church. When I got home, I shared it with Rebecca and made a commitment:

I would pray.

Not because I suddenly knew the answer, but because I wanted to be open to whatever God wanted.

About six months later, Rebecca was expecting our third child.

Looking back, I realize the greatest miracle that day in Washington wasn’t simply what happened months later. It was that God changed my heart before He changed my circumstances.

I’ve had to relearn that lesson many times since.

God often meets us when we are willing to ask the hard questions, surrender our fears, and become open to His leading.

So let me leave you with the same question God asked me:

Is there something you’re unwilling to even pray about?

Sometimes the threshold of a life-changing experience begins with a single prayer we’re finally willing to pray.

This story is adapted from Chapter 3 of Breathless Haste: Finding God in Ordinary Life, where Rebecca and I share thirty stories of discovering God in the ordinary moments of life.