4 Dangerous Prayers That Will Wreck Your Life

We all know we should pray, but all too often, we come before the Lord with safe prayers. We ask God to bless us, help us, provide for us, etc. and these are good payers; but what if we come before God with more dangerous prayers?

Bold prayers that will challenge us, make us uncomfortable, break us, transform us, and entirely change our lives. These dangerous prayers will not harm us per se, but they will take us into new levels in our faith walk. They will make us more like Christ and draw in closer intimacy with God.

When I was a new Christian, I innocently said some dangerous prayers that have been transforming me since. And I want to invite you to say those four dangerous prayers hoping they will change you too. A word of caution, though: be careful what you pray for because God will answer you!

1. Increase and strengthen my faith

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

Luke 17:5

I once heard a sermon on Daniel’s three friends and their “even if” faith. The kind of faith that can make you say “even if you don’t, Lord, I will still believe” (Daniel 3:17-18). That sermon inspired me, and I also desired to have an even if faith. So, I asked God to increase and strengthen my faith, but I didn’t know that I had just said a dangerous prayer.

I was a naive new Christian, and I assumed I would simply wake up with an even if faith. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. What I didn’t know is that to have an even if faith, you must be in an even if situation. For trials test, refine, and approve our faith (Peter 1:6-7). There’s no way around it.

If faith is like a muscle, then trials are like weights that help us work it out and get stronger. And once we can comfortably lift one weight, God will level it up. That’s what happened to me. I fell into the darkest season of my life and immensely struggled to hold on to my faith. Whenever I had a secure grip on it, the situation would worsen and send me tumbling again.

At some point, I wondered if God was indeed behind my trials because it looked like He wanted me to lose my faith. But He was strengthening it by making me able to bear more and more. Now when I look back to when I was a baby Christian to now, I can say without a doubt, my faith is much stronger, and my relationship with God much closer. And I never would have gotten there without going through the fire.

Faith is incredibly important, for, without it, we cannot please God. But prayers asking for more or stronger faith are dangerous prayers. However, If you are daring and prepared to go through the refining fire, say this prayer:

 Abba Father, increase my faith and strengthen it so I may believe in You even in my darkest hours. Let me trust You even if You don’t answer my prayers how and when I want it.

2. Humble me

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

James 4:6

Since becoming a Christian, pride has been one of my biggest struggles. More specifically, the pride of self-reliance. I have always prided myself on being able to depend on me without help from others. I had to be utterly desperate to humble myself and ask for help. But I couldn’t keep it up when I became a Christian, for God opposes the proud. So, one day, I said a dangerous prayer and asked God to humble me.

I also believed that I would wake up one morning and be humble like Moses, but again, I was painfully wrong. When God humbles you, it’s not passive. The Greek word used for oppose in this verse is antitasso, and it means to “set oneself against, to range in battle against.” God will attack your pride by putting you in humbling situations.

When God attacked my pride, He put me in many situations in which I was utterly powerless. I had to depend on people all too frequently and needed help for almost everything. It was a significant blow to my independent nature. Afterward, God put me in a season where I had Him only. I had moved to a new city on a leap of faith, and I didn’t have a job, connections there, or even a place to live. And daily, I learned to depend on God’s strength instead of mine.

As unpleasant as that season was, it was incredibly beneficial. It changed me a lot, and I am not as proud as I used to be. I quickly ask for help now, and best of all, every day I wake knowing I need Jesus, and it is His strength, not mine that empowers me daily.

We all deal with pride one way or another, it is the oldest sin in the book. If you are willing to humble yourself before God and allow Him to expose and attack the pride in your life, repeat this prayer:

Lord, rescue me from the pride in my life and teach me to be humble like You. I bow down before You and acknowledge that You are Lord, and everything I am or do is by your strength alone, not mine.

3. Search my heart and break it from what breaks yours

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Psalm 139:23-25

I first became inspired to say this prayer after listening to the lyrics “heal my heart and make it clean…break my heart from what breaks yours” from Hosanna by Hillsong. I said this prayer because everything I do flows from my heart (Proverbs 4:23), but it is desperately deceitful and sick (Jeremiah 17: 9-10). Asking God to search your heart is a crucial but dangerous prayer because God will reveal to you things you might not want to hear nor like.

He did it to me. The Holy Spirit convicted me of more things than I cared to know. For example, He revealed to me that I had made a job into an idol. I didn’t believe it at first, but the more I learned about idols, the more I realized that I had indeed begun to worship a job.

I had been on the job hunt for a long time, and getting a job was my top priority. Moreover, I believed it would provide for me, give purpose and identity. It was hard, but by God’s grace, I evicted that idol from my heart, and you can read more about it in the “Testing of my faith: unemployment.”

Another thing God’s probing revealed was that I put other’s opinions above His. When I was around worldly friends, I did everything I could to blend in with them. Even if it meant acting more worldly than Godly, but God calls us not to conform to this world, and I had to learn to follow Christ in public. Even if I was the odd one out or didn’t fit in with the “cool kids.”

All this to say that when you invite God to cleanse your heart, He will show up with a vacuum at your door. He will thoroughly clean you and break you in the process. But if you are willing to cleanse your heart and become like Christ, say this prayer:

Abba Father, examine my heart and shine your light on everything that is not of you. Let it be as offensive to me as it is to you and help me break from it. Test and cleanse my heart that it may become aligned with yours.

4. Send me to do Your will

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8

This prayer is my most recent dangerous prayer. It all started when I heard the song “Let It Start with Me” by No Other Name. This line: “Lord change the world and let it start with me” stirred something in me. I had this growing desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and I asked God to reveal His calling on my life and send me to accomplish it.

Asking God to send you is a dangerous prayer because you don’t know where God will send you. He may send you to do something opposite to your dreams, and it will be difficult. When God sent people in the Bible, it always came at a cost. The prophets were ridiculed and mocked, the apostles were beaten and martyred, and Jesus was crucified. There is, of course, much joy in fulfilling your calling, but be aware of the cost.

My most significant “danger” is that God may send me to do something not aligned with my plans. That’s because, despite my advanced degree in engineering, I haven’t been able to find a job since I graduated. Doors rarely open, and when they do, they close right back (read What to Do When God Says No).

I genuinely fear that I will never use that degree. My fear increased when God asked me to start a blog. And now that I am having dreams and desires involving writing, I am even more panicked and afraid that God will reroute me. However, my story is still unfolding, and I am willing to go where God sends me even if it is opposite my desires.

If you have read this far, I surmise you are not afraid of saying dangerous prayers. So say this last prayer to ask God to exchange your desires for His and go where He sends you.

Lord, here I am, ready and willing to do your will. Send me to accomplish Your great purposes. Lead me and guide me, I commit my life into Your Loving hands

for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

2 Timothy 1:7

God is the master potter, and we are His clay. He wants to mold us into His image, and we need to let Him examine us, break us, mold us, and strengthen us through the fire to become His perfect masterpiece. (Isaiah 64:8). So say these dangerous prayers and may God transform you through them and wreck your life in the right way.

   Grace and peace to you!