Devotion 6: Prayer With Confidence
As a child, I was obsessed with “The Sound of Music” and would often march around singing one of its songs called, “I Have Confidence.” The lyrics begin not with certainty, but with questions and doubt. “What will this day be like? I wonder. What will the future be? I wonder…my heart should be wildly rejoicing, oh, what’s the matter with me?” The song then builds towards convincing oneself of confidence before stepping out into the unknown. Long before I understood what confidence really meant, I was declaring it and hoping that it would be true. I think that many of us approach prayer in the same way. We want to be confident when we come before God, but we are often unsure where the confidence is supposed to come from. We hesitate, overthink our words, or maybe even secretly wonder if God actually hears us or wants to hear from us. If you have ever struggled with these thoughts, I have some great news for you! Scripture offers us a far more solid foundation for confidence than anything we could come up with on our own.
In Hebrews 10:19-22, we are reminded that our confidence in approaching God is not rooted in ourselves at all. "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith." Our access to God has already been secured! The door has not been cracked open by our eloquent words, our good works, or our sincerity; it has been thrown wide open by (and only by) the finished work of Christ.
We can draw near to God not because we feel ready, but because we have been invited. This matters because so often our confidence in prayer rises and falls with our circumstances. When life is going well and feels steady, prayer feels easier. But when we are distracted, weary, and discouraged, our confidence fades. Hebrews reminds us that confidence isn’t something we summon in the moment; it is something we stand on because of what Christ has already done.
Prayer is not entering a courtroom to plead our case to the judge, but instead entering a throne room towards a King who is waiting to welcome us in! 1 John 5:14 deepens this assurance: "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us." John emphasizes that confidence doesn’t come from knowing how or when God will answer; it comes from knowing that He hears us. To pray according to God’s will is not to pray timidly, but to pray trustingly, aligning our hearts with His character and believing that His wisdom is greater than our understanding. We can have confidence knowing that the God of the universe sees and knows all things and will work everything together for the good of those who love Him. Both of these passages hold beautiful truths: Hebrews tells us to come boldly, and 1 John tells us we are heard faithfully. We do not pray to convince God to care; instead, we pray because He already does. How amazing is that?! This is the kind of confidence that is freeing. It isn’t about what we bring to the table, and we don’t have to measure God’s nearness by the outcomes. When our confidence rests in the Lord, prayer becomes less about performance and more about presence.
As we pray, we will still likely wonder what the day may be like, what our future may be. We might still carry fears and questions and worry. But unlike a child trying to sing confidence into existence, we enter the throne room grounded in truth, because the door is wide open. God is waiting in that very place to hear us. Hebrews 10:22-23 reminds us, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith… Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." We can pray confidently not because we know what God will do, but because we know that we are welcomed, heard, and held by a faithful God.