Questions to Ask Jesus
Questions to bring to Jesus in prayer, written for honest reflection rather than easy reassurance, with guidance on what to do with what surfaces.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do you want me to notice today that I keep walking past?
Why ask it
Small and daily, which is why it is a good place to start. What surfaces is usually a person rather than an idea: the neighbor you nod at, the colleague who has gone quiet. If nothing comes, the honest report is that you have been moving too fast to see anything.
What would you have me stop doing?
Why ask it
Most prayer asks for additions. This one asks for subtraction, and the answer is often a habit you have already defended to yourself several times. Watch for the temptation to substitute something safe you had already planned to give up.
Who in my life needs something from me that I have been avoiding?
Why ask it
The avoidance is the useful part. Usually the thing needed is small and specific, a visit or an apology, and the reason you have not done it is embarrassment rather than difficulty. Naming it out loud removes most of its weight.
What am I still carrying that you have already forgiven?
Why ask it
Separates guilt that is calling you to repair something from guilt that is simply looping. If the answer is a matter you have confessed repeatedly and made right where you could, that is worth hearing plainly.
Where have I mistaken my own preferences for your will?
Why ask it
Uncomfortable because the two rarely feel different from the inside. The tell is usually convenience: the discerned path that costs you nothing and happens to match what you already wanted deserves a second look.
Who do I find hardest to love, and what would you have me do about them?
Why ask it
Note that the question asks for an action, not a feeling. Warm feelings cannot be produced on demand; a phone call, a withheld remark, or a genuine prayer for that person can be. Vague resolutions to be more loving are how this question gets dodged.
Where am I serving out of duty rather than love?
Why ask it
Duty-driven service tends to leave resentment behind it, which is the signal to look for. The answer is not always to quit; sometimes it is to stop expecting credit for what you chose to do.
What does your love for me look like on a day when I have nothing to offer?
Why ask it
Aimed straight at the assumption that acceptance depends on productivity. People who work hard at faith often find this the hardest question in the set, and the resistance to it is the answer.
What have I read so often in the Gospels that I no longer hear it?
Why ask it
Familiar passages stop landing. Reading a well-known one slowly, aloud, in a translation you do not normally use is a practical way to test whether you have been reciting rather than listening.
Where am I relying on my own competence instead of you?
Why ask it
Competence is not the problem; not noticing the reliance is. The revealing follow-up is what you would do if the skill you trust most were suddenly gone.
What are you asking of me that I keep negotiating down?
Why ask it
Most people already know their answer to this and have been rounding it off for a while: the tithe that became a token, the reconciliation that became a polite message. The specific number or name matters more than the sentiment.
Whom have I written off that you have not?
Why ask it
Written off is broader than disliked. It includes people you have decided are beyond change, which is a judgment that quietly excuses you from acting. Naming one person is more useful than admitting the habit in general.
What do you want me to understand about the cross that I have only understood as doctrine?
Why ask it
Distinguishes a position you could defend from something that has changed how you treat people. If the answer is only a sentence you already knew, sit with the passion narratives rather than with summaries of them.
What am I afraid you will ask of me?
Why ask it
The fear is usually specific: a place, a person, a career, a conversation. Vague dread often turns out to be avoidance of one concrete item, and it stops governing you once it is named.
Where does my life contradict what I say I believe?
Why ask it
Best asked about a single ordinary week rather than your character in general. Look at your calendar and what you spent money on, since those record your actual priorities more reliably than your intentions do.
What good work in front of me am I dismissing as too small to matter?
Why ask it
Grand callings are a common way to postpone ordinary obedience. The answer tends to be unglamorous and immediate: the shift nobody wants, the relative who is tedious to visit.
How do you want me to pray when I do not feel like praying?
Why ask it
Dry stretches are ordinary, not evidence of failure, and most people have no plan for them. A short set form, a psalm, or a fixed few minutes is worth deciding on before the dryness arrives.
What does your kingdom look like in the ordinary parts of my week?
Why ask it
Moves the idea out of the abstract and into your workplace, your commute, your household. If you cannot name anything concrete, that is a fair sign your faith has been living mostly on Sundays.
What would you want said about how I lived, by the people who knew me daily?
Why ask it
The people you live with, not the ones who admire you from a distance, are the honest witnesses. Any gap between the answer you want and the one you would get is where the work is.
What do you want to say to me that I have not been quiet enough to hear?
Why ask it
A closing question that requires actual silence, not more words from you. Give it several minutes without filling them; the point is to stop asking, which is the part most people skip.
Praying With These Questions
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to use them in prayer
- Take one question at a time and stay with it for several days rather than working through the list in one sitting.
- Write the question at the top of a page and write whatever comes, without editing. Rereading it a week later is where most of the value appears.
- Read a Gospel passage alongside the question. The four Gospels are short enough to read straight through, and the accounts themselves anchor prayer better than commentary about them does.
- Leave silence at the end. Several unfilled minutes are usually where something arrives, and they are the first thing people cut.
Sorting what comes back
Conviction is specific; anxiety is diffuse
A prompting that names one action you could take this week is worth acting on. A general sense of not being good enough usually is not, and treating the two the same way tends to leave people exhausted.
Test it against the Gospels
Anything you sense should be recognizable in how Jesus actually treated people in the accounts. A conclusion that is harsher toward others than he was deserves suspicion.
Say it out loud to someone
A pastor, spiritual director, or trusted friend will hear things you cannot hear in your own voice, and will notice when a supposed leading is simply what you already wanted.
Common pitfalls
Answering the question you wish had been asked
It is easy to turn every question into one you already have a comfortable response for. If your answer arrives instantly and costs nothing, the question has probably not been asked yet.
Turning reflection into self-attack
Several of these questions expose real failure. If prayer regularly ends in loathing rather than repair, that is a reason to talk to someone, not to press harder.
Waiting for certainty before acting
Most answers arrive as a next step rather than a whole plan. Taking the small, clear action is usually what makes the following one visible.