Here’s a question that might make you uncomfortable:
What if you already know what your answered prayer is, but you’re not willing to receive it because it’s not the answered prayer you think you want?

I see this pattern all the time with spiritual students.

Someone prays for peace, but what they really mean is: “Please make everyone around me stop triggering me.”

Someone prays for healing, but what they really mean is: “Please take away my pain without requiring me to look at what’s causing it.”

We think we know what our answered prayer should look like, and when Spirit offers us something different – something that would actually serve our highest good – we resist it because it doesn’t match our picture.

A Course in Miracles teaches us to be willing to receive the answered prayer even if it’s not what we think we want. But this requires a level of trust that most people aren’t ready for. It requires being willing to let go of our attachment to how we think healing should happen.

I learned this lesson deeply when I was drowning in fear patterns years ago. I was praying for the anxiety to stop, for the triggers to go away, for life to stop feeling so hard. I wanted the pain to disappear – immediately, magically, without any effort on my part.

I wasn’t willing to change my thinking, but I wanted my life to change.

The healing that came was different than I expected. There were these major keys:

#1 Being willing to look at my patterns,
#2 Willingness to take responsibility for my experience and my feelings, and my projections
#3 Learning and USING the tools that would help me transform my mind.

It’s not enough to learn what’s wrong with my stinking thinking.
It’s not enough to want to change.
It’s not enough to intellectually understand what the problem is.

I had to be willing to actually use the tools I was learning. The healing required me to stop being a victim of my thoughts and be willing to develop a more masterful approach to my own thinking.

Was this the answered prayer I thought I wanted? No.
Was it the answered prayer I actually needed? Absolutely.

The ego always works to edit God’s will. It’s designed to take the healing that Love offers and interpret it to fit its “lack, attack, limitation and separation” agenda. It says it’s all about freedom, but without the forgiveness work, without the mental practice, it’s just empty talk. There is no way to have Peace without releasing the grievances. That’s why “forgiveness offers everything I want.”

Without an effective spiritual practice at the level of the mind, the miracles stay out of reach.

This is why willingness is everything. Once we learn to trust Love completely – to trust that Love knows what we need better than we do – we can receive answers to prayers we didn’t even know we were praying.

Here’s what I’ve noticed after working with thousands of people: we often resist our answered prayers because they require us to show up differently.

The prayer for Peace requires us to practice forgiveness daily.
The prayer for freedom requires us to stop playing victim and actually do the inner work we’ve been avoiding.

Think about the prayers you’ve been praying lately. Now ask yourself honestly: if the answer required you to commit 90 days to transforming your mind, would you be willing to receive it?

Most of us have been praying for our triggers to stop while simultaneously avoiding the healing work that would actually free us from those triggers.  Freedom comes from our mind, not the world.

We want the external Peace without the internal practice.

Love is too intelligent to give us what we think we want if it won’t actually serve our awakening. Love gives us what we need to remember who we are – and sometimes that means giving us the opportunity to finally heal at the root.

Here’s a powerful prayer “Let me be willing to receive the highest good, even if it requires me to do the work I’ve been avoiding.”

This prayer requires tremendous trust. It requires being willing to stop managing our problems and start healing them. It requires saying yes to transformation even when the ego thinking keeps us playing small.

What prayer have you been praying? And more importantly: are you willing to receive the answer, even if it comes as an invitation to finally do the deep work that will set you free?

If you’re feeling that nudge right now – that knowing that it’s time – trust it. That’s Love answering your prayer.

Sometimes the answer to our prayer comes as an opportunity to join others on the same journey. If you’ve been praying for freedom from fear, for peace in your relationships, for an end to the exhausting patterns that keep you stuck – perhaps this message is part of your answer.

FINDING FREEDOM FROM FEAR Starts Monday Sept 22 – Why a spiritual bootcamp? Because it works. It makes us face what we’ve been avoiding, gives us the support of like-minded souls, and helps us get in spiritual shape fast. My Finding Freedom From Fear Spiritual Bootcamp is designed so you won’t give up – so YOU win. With 8 core classes, 50 healing toolkit videos, Freedom Posse support groups, and 3 months of Sacred Circle spiritual counseling with me, you’ll have everything needed to transform triggers into healing opportunities. If you’re willing to show up and ride the wave of group energy, this could be exactly what your soul is calling for. Trust your guidance.

TODAY, Sundays With Spirit – a powerful inspirational message and uplifting music in community with deep prayer!  Register now if you haven’t already and we’ll send you the link for zoom – totally FREE as usual!  It’s a full moon!  It’s an eclipse!  Let’s ride the energy waves of transformation together!

NEW ACIM PODCAST EPISODE: my topic is Your Pain Is Optional: The Radical Truth About Suffering.In this episode, I explore the challenging yet liberating teaching from ACIM Lesson 152 that no one suffers without their own decision – a truth that confronted me more than anything else in my spiritual journey. I share how this teaching, while difficult to accept when facing loss or tragedy, became my path to complete freedom from fear and suffering. Through personal stories and practical examples, I demonstrate how we can take responsibility without blame, recognize our eternal innocence regardless of circumstances, and access the peace that’s always available when we choose truth over the stories our ego tells us.