How to Pray: God I Have Questions

Has following God ever made you look foolish? In this episode of The Press Podcast, we dive into the raw and powerful conversation between the prophet Jeremiah and God found in Jeremiah chapters 11 and 12. When Jeremiah speaks God's truth and faces backlash, he's left with deep questions—and he brings them to God in prayer.

This episode explores what it means to pray when life doesn't make sense and how to approach God with questions without losing reverence. You'll discover the power of honest prayer, the importance of posture in prayer, and why God sometimes says, “Don’t pray for them.”

We unpack how generational disobedience impacted Israel and how Jeremiah’s prayer gives us a model for our own—especially when we feel unheard, unsure, or stuck between obedience and opposition. Whether you're learning how to pray with humility or seeking to understand the power of prayer in times of confusion, this episode will challenge and encourage your faith.

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Transcript

Press means to apply force. When God said press, prayer reaches every single situation. He gave us permission to apply force to every situation that we will go through.

And in this podcast, we are going to learn to apply force to what's applying pressure to us. Has following God ever made you look stupid? I mean, really stupid. Like you said what God said, and it doesn't look like what he said, and people are coming for you? If not, it can happen.

And it may even happen because you're a prophet of God. Now, when we think of prophets today, we don't usually think of looking foolish for that reason. But in Jeremiah chapter 12, in our next prayer, we see Jeremiah has questions.

Welcome to the Press Podcast. So glad you're here. Let's look at Jeremiah chapter 11, because in Jeremiah 11, the Lord has Jeremiah prophesying to the children of Judah and the children of Israel once again.

He's been talking to them about how angry the Lord is with them. And he's taking them all the way back to Egypt saying, the Lord gave us a command way back then, obey my voice, do what I say, and you'll be my people. And I'll perform the oath that I swore to your fathers.

Now note, this commandment is 700 years old. There's no one left who was there when they actually came out of Egypt. There is no one left who remembers Moses from a firsthand account.

But what the Lord said has echoed through the generations. It makes me think of life today, because some of us have parents who were saved, grandparents, great-grandparents. I wonder what the Lord said to them that still affects us.

Either way, I know, at least in my family, we don't pass down history like that. But the ideal that something could come through the generations, and I'm supposed to still obey it, is an interesting one to me. Would it be harder to follow not knowing the word of the Lord for yourself, not having heard it for yourself? I don't know.

But I do know the Lord had sent people down through the generations to reiterate who he is to Judah, to Israel, to his people. He never wanted them to forget, and he still is holding them to what he said all along. And so God is angry.

Verse 8 of chapter 11, yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked everyone in the imagination of their evil hearts. That word imagination is also translated in the Bible, lust, the stubbornness, the hardness, the firmness. They were going after what they wanted.

They were a group that said, we're going to follow our heart. And they were firm in that. The Bible does say there is nothing new under the sun.

Have you ever heard, follow your heart? They put it in children's movies. They put it in Hallmark. That's pretty much all I watch.

They put it in different places. Like that is the goal that today we should follow our hearts. But the Bible says this is what caused the children of Israel to be disobedient because everybody walked in their own hardness, stubbornness, imagination of their evil heart.

And that word evil is ra. If you look at the Hebrew letters for this word in particular, it's ar, which is a man's head, or resh, and aleph, which is an ox. The Hebrew letters were written as pictures and they always had significant meaning in that way.

So you had a man's head and you had an ox. The ox is a picture of strength. That's what it represented.

When we walk in the strength of our own mind, our own head, our own thoughts, the Bible calls that ra. It calls it evil. Just because you believe it to be true does not mean God is saying it's true too.

Just because you feel really, really strongly about it is not evidence that you must be right. Our feelings are not evidence of right. Our thoughts are not evidence of right.

But these people are following themselves and God is angry. He calls it a conspiracy amongst the men of Judah or treason. He calls it an unlawful alliance that they've come together against him.

And he has Jeremiah telling them all of this. This is the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah. And Jeremiah begins to prophesy to them in verse 11.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord, behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape. He tells them in verse 14, therefore, pray not for this people, neither lift up a cry or prayer for them, for I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto me for their trouble. God has made a decision that I'm not listening right now.

He's going to let them hurt. And he tells Jeremiah, don't pray for him. Don't cry for him.

Don't do any of that. They're going to have to hurt for this. I believe God still lets us know when he doesn't want to talk about something anymore.

There will be times you go to pray for somebody, you go to ask for mercy, and you can't feel anything. It's like God is not listening. And sometimes that's because he's not.

Sometimes he's made a decision, not that God can't hear, but God's not listening. He's not engaged in what you're saying. Why? Because there are consequences to our decision.

And God doesn't always take away our consequences. And that's not because you're good or bad or whatever. Sometimes it's just simply God has made a decision.

And his decision was in verse 22, behold, I will punish them. The young men shall die by the sword. Their sons and daughters shall die by famine, and there shall be no remnant of them.

For I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation. And that word visitation means just that. It's a year of oversight.

It's a year of punishment. He's coming to see them, and this is not the way they want him to visit them. So all of these things, Jeremiah is prophesying, and he's telling the children of Israel, now you can imagine their reaction.

He is not the most popular guy in town. He is not the one being invited to anything. He is not the person you want to talk with.

The Lord allowed him to be put into a position where he's going to be hated. And yet God has him prophesying to the people, and the Lord doesn't do it in the moment. He says it.

So Jeremiah's prayer is in Jeremiah chapter 12, and it starts out saying, Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee, yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root, they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit. Thou art near in their mouth and far from their reins.

But thou, O Lord, knowest me. Thou hast seen me and tried my own heart toward thee. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

How long shall the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? The beasts are consumed and birds because they said he shall not see our last end. In this prayer, we get to see Jeremiah's mindset, the mindset of a servant, the mindset of somebody who's speaking on behalf of God, and he believes God is righteous. He wants to talk to God about the decisions he's making, but he comes humbly first.

I've heard people say you cannot question God. I have never understood that because I don't understand who you're supposed to ask them when you have questions. Like, who should I go to? If I can't ask God, who can I ask? But what I do recognize is that how you ask him is important, and the posture of your heart must be humble, understanding that God is better than you, and his way is right, and your understanding does not justify questioning him like he's making a mistake.

So Jeremiah approaches God, and he has questions, but he starts with, righteous art thou, O Lord. That means you're just, you're lawful, you're right, you're correct. He's not questioning, can God make this decision, or should God make this decision? He is recognizing, no matter what you do, I know you're right, but I have questions.

And he's really wondering, how long are you going to leave me out here? How long before we see what you're saying? He says, God, it looks like they're doing all right. It looks like they're prospering. It looks like they're growing, and you're in their mouth.

They're still talking about you. They're still going through the motions. They're still acting like they know you, but you're so far from their emotions, their affections, their minds.

They talk a good game, but their minds and the way they think, the way they act, the way they make decisions, none of it matches with their mouths. I'm sorry. I have to pause right there, because this sounds like many people who go to the church today.

The real church of God is still intact, and they are preparing to be wrapped already. But the church that gets the most publicizing, and the one you see on social media the most, teaches you things like, like sin is the norm, and it's something we all have to do. But God is gracious, and I use air quotes.

I know you can't see them, but gracious, like we have a right to take advantage of grace, because grace is in his nature. But my Bible still says things like, for to be carnally minded is dead, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. God expects your mind to change when you come to him.

He expects you not to think the same way, not to react the same way, not to move the same way. Romans 6 says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? He literally answers the whole, by grace are we saved thing. Grace was the cross, but from the cross on, he says, shall we continue in sin? Shall we keep it up? Just saying that grace will abound, grace will overflow.

He says, God forbid, I'm in Romans 6. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Sin is not an option because it's a dead part of who we were. And he explains that more because he says, know ye not that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death. So how did I die out to sin? I died out to sin because I was baptized in Jesus' name.

And that baptism baptized me into his death. It wasn't symbolic. It wasn't just so somebody could confess they know the Lord.

No, the cross is where Jesus went to separate his people from sin and give them access to him. And his blood was shed that we might be free and free from sin. He came to save the world from their sins, Matthew 1 21.

And his name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. Why would he then say, I can't quite do that. You've still got to sin a little bit.

So it's okay. That doesn't even make sense. But he expects us to be dead to it when we're baptized in his name.

And we rise, Romans 6 and 4 says, to walk in the newness of life. And that's our access point. Because the Bible says, if we've been planted together in the likeness of his death, in this figure, this comparison of his death, baptism is a kind of death.

It is a death to the old you and a rising to the new you. He said we should also be in the likeness of his resurrection. He says, knowing this, because we believe that, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve for he that is dead is freed from sin.

You cannot tell me I have to sin. I can't be right. I can't be holy and say, God has grace for that.

Like I have to sin. I have to fail. No, I can choose to fail and prayerfully God to have grace.

But it may be like what we're seeing in Jeremiah, because my Bible says he that is dead is freed from sin. He actually made me free, so I don't have to do that. And that's what he wanted for the people that he loved.

So the children of Israel, the men of Judah, he wanted them separated from sin. He wanted them to be obedient, and he didn't give them an impossible mission. He didn't say to them, do this, knowing they can never do it.

But when he says to you, you can be free from sin, you can be obedient, you can do this, it's because he knows he can keep you. But they could talk the good game with their mouth, and they cannot do it with their hearts, minds, or emotions. But Jeremiah says, but thou, O Lord, knowest me.

Thou hast seen me and tried mine heart toward thee. Jeremiah is saying, I didn't go that way. And it only takes one person, only one, to condemnation.

He's the one who said, I am what I look like I am. I live in public and in private the same way. I'm walking with you.

You know my heart. You've seen my actions. You know me.

And then he prays, God, send the judgment. Send what you're saying. Because there were consequences for him to prophesy.

The Bible says that even the house of his father, they've dealt treacherously with him. Today, and as we move forward with this walk, following God might have consequences. Following God might cause questions.

Following God may mean you don't fit in. But following God means you get God. Stay in the God place.

Stay in the place he put you. Stay with your questions. Stay with your consequences.

Just stay and realize that when you're calling to a righteous God, he can hear you and just believe that prayer reaches every single situation. Keep pressing. Join the movement.

Join the community. Like, share and subscribe to this podcast. Visit us at PressToPray.com or find us on Instagram or Facebook.

Did you know that when you are quiet, your voice is missing to God's ears? I know some of us have prayed and were wondering how long should I pray about this? Why should I pray if God already knows? How will I know God is answering? And what do I do when I feel like God's not listening? But God is listening for your voice. It's too quiet in this world for the troubles we have. You have to raise your voice and God wants to hear from you.

It's Too Quiet, a book about prayer. It's designed to answer your prayer questions and build your faith. Visit PressToPray.com

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