There are prayers we pray with confidence—words that come quickly because they match what we already believe God will do. And then there are prayers that feel risky, not because they sound dramatic, but because they require surrender. The prayer I almost didn’t pray was only seven words long, and it didn’t ask for a miracle, a sign, or a sudden breakthrough. It asked for something quieter and, in my experience, harder.
I had been praying for God to fix something specific. You probably know the kind of prayer I mean: “Please change this situation.” “Please change them.” “Please change me.” I had a clear picture of what “fixed” should look like. My mind kept returning to the same list of outcomes—better circumstances, fewer problems, a clean resolution that would let me exhale.
But I was tired. Not just physically, but spiritually tired—the kind of tired that comes from circling the same mountain in your thoughts, rehearsing the same worries, and ending each day feeling like you’re carrying a heavy bag that never gets lighter.
That was when the seven words formed, almost against my will: “God, show me what You’re working on.”
I almost didn’t pray it because it sounded like an invitation for God to redirect the conversation. And I wasn’t sure I wanted a redirected conversation. I wanted an answer. I wanted a fix. But something in me knew that if I kept praying the same way, I would keep feeling the same way—anxious, controlling, and secretly resentful when life didn’t cooperate with my plan.
So I prayed it anyway.
When “Fix This” Becomes a Script
Many of us learn to pray by naming needs: health, relationships, money, decisions, protection. There’s nothing wrong with that. Scripture is full of people bringing real requests to God. Jesus Himself invites us to ask, seek, and knock.
But over time, “God, fix this” can become less like honest prayer and more like a script we recite when we feel powerless. The script usually has three parts:
1) Identify the problem. We know what’s wrong, and we can explain it in detail.
2) Propose the solution. We have a preferred timeline and method, even if we don’t say it out loud.
3) Ask God to carry it out. We end with faith-filled words, but sometimes we’re really asking God to endorse our plan.
Again, asking God to intervene is not the issue. The issue is what happens inside us when our prayers become a way of managing our anxiety rather than trusting God’s presence.
I didn’t realize how much my prayer life had become a place where I tried to control outcomes. I used spiritual language, but underneath it was a tight grip: “Lord, please do what I think is best, because I don’t know how to live with uncertainty.”
The seven-word prayer threatened that grip. “Show me what You’re working on” implies that God is already working—possibly in places I’m ignoring, possibly in me, possibly in a way I didn’t choose.
Why Seven Words Felt So Vulnerable
That prayer is short, but it’s loaded. It contains at least three acts of surrender:
It admits I might be focused on the wrong thing. If I ask God to show me what He’s working on, I’m acknowledging that my attention might be locked onto the loudest problem instead of the deepest need.
It accepts God’s timing. “Show me” is a request for clarity, not a demand for immediate change. It’s an open hand rather than a clenched fist.
It invites correction. If God reveals something I don’t want to see—an attitude, a pattern, an idol, a fear—I can’t pretend I didn’t ask.
I think many of us avoid prayers like this because we sense that God’s work is often more personal than we want it to be. We would prefer a quick external fix over a slow internal transformation.
But spiritual growth rarely happens the way we’d schedule it. God’s work tends to be both gentler and more invasive than we expect: gentle in how patiently He leads, invasive in how thoroughly He loves.
What Changed: From “Fix Them” to “Form Me”
I didn’t receive a lightning-bolt moment. I didn’t hear an audible voice. What changed was the direction of my attention.
As I sat with that prayer over days, I began to notice a pattern: my strongest “fix this” prayers were often attached to something that made me feel unsafe. The situation might have been frustrating on the surface, but deeper down it threatened something tender—my sense of worth, my need to be understood, my fear of being disappointed, my longing for stability.
When I asked God what He was working on, I started to see that He was not only concerned with the problem I wanted solved; He was also concerned with the person I was becoming while I waited.
That realization didn’t erase my requests. I still asked God for help, for provision, for reconciliation, for wisdom. But the tone changed. I began to pray less like a project manager and more like a child—still honest, still specific, but more willing to be led.
It also changed what I considered “fixed.” I used to think “fixed” meant the removal of discomfort. Now I began to consider that sometimes “fixed” means the presence of God in discomfort, giving me strength, clarity, and love that I didn’t have before.
Not every problem is meant to stay. Not every hardship is “for a reason” in a tidy way. But God can work in the middle of things that are not tidy. And often, His first move is to reorient us—so we stop staring at the storm and start listening for His voice.
What This Prayer Revealed (Without Making It About Me)
To be clear, praying “God, show me what You’re working on” is not a guarantee that you’ll instantly understand your life. It’s not a magic phrase. It’s a posture.
And in that posture, a few themes tend to surface for many people of faith:
1) God often works on trust before circumstances. We want God to change the external situation so we can have peace. God often grows peace in us so we can face whatever happens next.
2) God highlights what we’re carrying. Sometimes the weight isn’t the situation itself, but the meanings we attach to it: “If this doesn’t work out, I’m a failure.” “If they don’t approve, I’m not safe.” “If I’m not in control, something terrible will happen.”
3) God invites obedience in small steps. The next right thing is often unglamorous: tell the truth, ask forgiveness, set a boundary, be patient, be generous, rest, stop replaying the argument, make the call you’ve been avoiding.
4) God exposes false saviors. We may lean on productivity, people-pleasing, numbing habits, or constant busyness to cope. God’s work can include gently removing our reliance on substitutes so we can lean on Him again.
None of this is about self-improvement as a spiritual hobby. It’s about relationship. When God shows us what He’s working on, He’s not pointing out flaws to shame us; He’s revealing what’s blocking love, joy, and freedom.
How to Pray the Seven Words Without Overthinking
If you’re anything like me, you might want to turn this into a technique. You might ask, “How do I do it right?” The good news is you don’t need to do it perfectly. You just need to do it honestly.
Here are a few simple ways to pray it in real life:
Pray it at the start of your day. Before you check your phone, before you look at your calendar: “God, show me what You’re working on.” Then sit for a minute. If a person comes to mind, pray for them. If a fear comes to mind, name it to God. If nothing comes, that’s okay too—your prayer still matters.
Pray it when you feel triggered. When you notice the spike—anger, defensiveness, panic—pause: “God, show me what You’re working on.” Sometimes the trigger points to an old wound or a lie you’ve been believing.
Pray it before you ask for a fix. You don’t have to stop asking for help. Try beginning with openness: “God, show me what You’re working on. And please help me with this.” That order can soften your heart without silencing your needs.
Pray it in community. If you have a trusted friend, pastor, or small group, you can share: “I’m praying, ‘God, show me what You’re working on.’ Would you pray that with me?” Sometimes God uses other believers to reflect His truth back to us.
What If God Shows You Something You Don’t Like?
This is the part many of us fear, and it’s why the seven words can feel like standing in bright light.
What if God shows you that you’re holding a grudge? That you’ve been controlling? That your coping strategies are hurting you? That you’ve made an idol out of comfort, success, romance, or being right?
If that happens, remember the character of God. Conviction is different from condemnation. Condemnation says, “You’re hopeless.” Conviction says, “You’re loved, and you don’t have to live this way.”
When God reveals something difficult, you don’t have to fix yourself overnight. You can respond with another simple prayer:
“God, help me take the next step.”
Repentance, in the biblical sense, is not performative misery. It’s a change of mind and direction—turning toward God. Sometimes that looks like apologizing. Sometimes it looks like making a wise choice. Sometimes it looks like asking for support because you can’t untangle a pattern alone.
And sometimes it looks like receiving forgiveness you’ve been withholding from yourself.
When the Situation Still Doesn’t Change
One reason we hesitate to pray open-handed prayers is that we suspect God might not do what we want. And sometimes He doesn’t—at least not in the way we expected or within the timeline we prefer.
That can be painful. Faith is not denial. Disappointment is real. Grief is real. Unanswered questions are real.
But here’s what I found: praying “God, show me what You’re working on” didn’t make me passive; it made me steadier. It gave me a way to stay connected to God even when my circumstances stayed messy.
Instead of measuring God’s goodness only by outcomes, I began to notice His presence in the process: a timely word from a friend, a moment of peace that didn’t match my situation, the courage to do something hard, the ability to forgive a little more than I could yesterday.
Those aren’t small things. They are evidence of God at work, often in the very places we would have skipped if we had gotten the quick fix.
A Prayer That Reframes What “Fix” Means
I used to think God’s job was to repair whatever I named. Now I’m learning that God’s love is deeper than my requests. He cares about the problems I bring to Him, but He also cares about the roots beneath them.
Sometimes I ask God to fix a relationship, and He begins by fixing my defensiveness.
Sometimes I ask God to fix my anxiety, and He begins by teaching me to rest, to breathe, to tell the truth about what I’m afraid of.
Sometimes I ask God to fix my future, and He begins by meeting me in today.
That doesn’t mean God ignores our external needs. It means He refuses to treat us like machines that just need the right part replaced. He works with the whole person—heart, mind, habits, desires, wounds, hope.
And because He is God, His definition of “fixed” often looks like “healed,” “freed,” “formed,” “strengthened,” and “made new.”
If You Want to Try It, Start Here
If you’re standing in front of a problem you desperately want God to solve, you don’t have to stop asking. Bring your whole request to Him. But consider making room for this seven-word prayer, even if it scares you a little:
“God, show me what You’re working on.”
Then listen—not just for a new circumstance, but for a new invitation. It might be an invitation to trust. It might be an invitation to release control. It might be an invitation to take one brave step. It might be an invitation to receive love where you’ve been trying to earn it.
The beautiful thing about this prayer is that it doesn’t demand a perfect believer. It only requires willingness.
And willingness is often where transformation begins—not with louder prayers or longer prayers, but with honest ones. Sometimes the prayer you almost don’t pray becomes the one that changes you, not by shrinking your problems, but by expanding your faith and widening your vision of what God is truly fixing.
Because in the end, God is not only interested in making life easier. He is interested in making you whole.