Bold Prayers: The Cost, the Risk, and the Reward by Kristy Mast

If you want God to do something new in your life, you can’t keep doing the same old thing.

That truth applies to everything, but especially prayer.

Bold prayers always cost something. They require sacrifice and risk, but on the other side of sacrifice is transformation, and on the other side of risk is revelation.

Sacrifice vs. Safety

We’re wired for safety. We like to see outcomes before we step out. But faith doesn’t work that way.

Sacrifice means walking by faith, not by sight.
Safety says, “Show me first.”
Sacrifice says, “I’ll trust You even if I can’t see.”

Here’s the contrast:

Safety feels good for a moment, but sacrifice is what grows us. How often do we hold back on bold prayers because truthfully we are not prepared for the sacrifice and risk that comes with it? We want the answered prayer but we don’t want to let go of control. We’re afraid to say “yes” before we know how. What if praying small reflects fear, not humility? 

Risk vs. Comfort

Risk means saying yes before you know how; comfort waits for everything to make sense.

Faith rarely makes sense at first. That’s what makes it faith. When we take risks in prayer…when we pray for things that stretch us, scare us, or seem impossible, we open the door for God to move in ways only He can.

• Risk is trusting God’s leading.
  
  
• Comfort is trusting our own limits.
  
  
• Risk is the courage to begin again.
  
  
• Comfort is the fear of failing again.
  
  

If you’ve ever stopped praying for something because it didn’t happen yet, take heart. The courage to start praying again is part of the miracle.

How to Pray Bolder and More Specific

Here’s the thing about prayer- the more specific our prayers, the easier it becomes to recognize God’s hand when He answers. Praying for “financial security” is fine, but what does that actually mean? How will you know when that prayer has been answered? You won’t, and that makes it easy to miss God’s fingerprints in your story.

Now, if your prayer is, “Lord, help me pay off $10,000 in debt,” or “Help me build my savings to $5,000,” or “Give me the ability to bless another family with a $500 gift,” then when those things happen, you’ll be able to look back and say, “I prayed for this and God delivered.”

I believe God answers far more prayers than we realize. We just don’t always recognize them because we never defined what we were asking for in the first place. When we get specific, it’s not about boxing God in, it’s about opening our eyes to see Him at work. Clarity doesn’t confine Him; it gives us a front-row seat to His faithfulness.

And the best part? God rarely stops at our specifics. He has a way of taking what little faith we have and multiplying it — doing what Ephesians 3:20 describes as “exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

He doesn’t just give enough.
He gives more than enough.
But we have to have the faith to begin and the courage to ask.

Why We Stop Dreaming

Somewhere along the way, many of us stop praying bold, specific prayers. Life gets busy. We start praying for survival instead of revival. We ask for just enough strength to make it through the day rather than daring to dream for tomorrow. Our prayers become reactive instead of proactive, focused on putting out fires instead of fueling faith.

Bold prayers are what pull us out of survival mode. They remind us that faith isn’t passive, it’s active. It’s seeing beyond what is and believing for what could be. When we get back to dreaming with God, our prayers stop sounding like fear and start sounding like faith. And that’s when we begin to experience the kind of abundance that only comes from walking hand in hand with a God who loves to do more than enough.

Reflection Prompt

Take a few quiet minutes this week to ask yourself:

“What prayer have I been keeping vague and how can I make it specific enough to recognize when God answers it?”

Write it down. Speak it out. Give thanks that it's being answered.
Then watch how God shows up…not just to meet the need, but to exceed it.

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