When Nothing Is Working

Do you wonder why your prayers seem unanswered? Have you ever wondered why you are not receiving what you are asking God for—whether it be virtues, personal changes, help with struggles or relational problems, or psychological healing?

Have you asked God what more you need to be doing in order to cooperate with Him so that He can give you what you are asking for? Have you asked Him how you may be blocking Him?

Many of us pray:

• “Lord, help me be brave.”
• “Lord, help me be patient.”
• “Lord, help me have courage, trust, peace, or help to be a better person.”

We ask God to help us stop being impatient, angry, fearful, stressed, anxious, or depressed. We ask Him to free us from addictions, help us set boundaries, stop watching pornography, or improve our relationships.

Yet often nothing changes. And when nothing changes, many people blame God. They invent all kinds of assumptions to explain the silence.

The truth is this: the problem is not God’s silence, but our failure to repent.

What Repentance Really Is

Repentance does not mean a vague sense of regret or guilt. It is not merely admitting we are “not perfect.” True repentance requires: 

1. Becoming fully self-aware of what needs to change within ourselves.
2. Fully acknowledging that we alone are to blame for choosing it by our free will.
3. Being sincerely sorry to God for having chosen it.
4. Genuinely desiring to change.
5. Actively practicing change in cooperation with God’s Grace.

The problem is that most of us have not specifically repented of the exact things we are asking God to change in us. Even more importantly, we have not repented of having wanted those things up until now.

Until we repent in detail, we are failing to do our part of the work. This is work God will not—and cannot—do for us, because He will not override our free will to choose. To control our free will would be unloving, and God cannot act in an unloving way. God, who IS Love, cannot act against Himself. Until we repent, we remain unwilling to cooperate with Him in the very areas we are praying about.

Why Our Prayers Stall

You may be asking God for patience, courage, freedom from anger, release from fear or anxiety, healing from depression, resistance against addiction, purity, better boundaries, or deeper love in relationships. Yet nothing changes. Why?

If you want God to free you of a sin and help you be more virtuous, you must first repent of having rejected the particular virtue(s) up to the present moment—and repent every time you fail to behave virtuously in the future. You must also repent of having wanted to reject it, to not behave in a virtuous way.

For example:

• If you want patience, you must repent for rejecting patience and for wanting impatience up to this point.
• If you want freedom from anger, you must repent for choosing anger and for wanting to be angry.
• If you want confidence, you must repent for choosing insecurity and for wanting to remain insecure.
• If you ask God to heal you of your anger, you must repent for having chosen anger and for having wanted to be angry.
• If you ask God to heal you of your insecurity and grant you confidence, you must repent for having chosen insecurity and for having wanted it.
• If you ask God to make you more loving, you must repent for having chosen to be unloving and for having wanted to do so.

Without this, your prayer is incomplete. Until you take full responsibility for these choices of your free will and repent, you are still clinging to the very things you are asking God to heal / remove.

The Nature of Free Will

Every interior act—what we are attracted to, like, dislike, want/desire, expect, believe, think, and emotionally feel—is an act of the free will. Every exterior act—what we say and what we do or fail to do—is also an act of the free will.

There is no “neutral.” We are always choosing either Truth+Love+Virtues or their opposites: lies, selfishness, and sin.

Failing to choose the good is already choosing the absence of it. Doing “nothing” is itself a choice, and often a sinful one.

This is why repentance must be detailed and specific. It must address not only our external behaviors but also our interior ones: our attractions, likes, dislikes, wants/desires, expectations, beliefs, thoughts, and emotions.

The Role of Self-Deception

Many people insist:

• “I don’t make myself feel insecure, angry, anxious, or depressed.”
• “I don’t want to feel insecure or impatient or addicted.”

But this very denial reveals the lack of self-awareness that prevents repentance. Just because we think we are not guilty does not make it true. Pride, denial, rationalization, excuses, selective memory, and ignorance blind us. That is why we need to ask God daily to reveal all our sins to us and to show us specifically what to repent of.

Unless we ask God directly to show us what to repent of, and spend real time listening to Him—such as at least a weekly hour in contemplative prayer before the Eucharist—we will know very little of our own sins.

Without this, we remain ignorant of our responsibility and continue to block God.

Why Repentance Comes First

God is Truth+Love+Virtues. Therefore, Truth is Love, Truth is Freedom, Truth is Peace, Truth is Bliss. Willful ignorance; aka not wanting and not having the Truth hurts and makes us suffer. Thinking we are right when we are wrong while not wanting to investigate if and how we might be wrong, is the worst thing we can do to harm ourselves. This is Pride. And Pride is the base of all sin.

God is Truth + Love + Virtues. Whenever we are not choosing them in detail, we are rejecting Him.

And here is the crucial point: God cannot give Himself to us in the very ways we are still rejecting Him.

Repentance—specific, sincere sorrow for our actions, our beliefs, and our desires—is what allows us to truly cooperate with God. It shows Him that we actually want the change we are praying for. Without repentance, we do not, because deep down, we are asking God to override choices we still cling to.

This is why our prayers “fail.” It is not because God is unwilling. It is because we are.

The Good News

Once we repent sincerely and specifically, God responds. Repentance is the door through which His grace flows.

When we say:

• “Lord, I’m sorry for choosing anger, and wanting to be angry. I don’t want it anymore, please heal me. I want Your peace instead.”
• “Lord, I’m sorry for choosing to feel afraid, and wanting to be afraid. I don’t want it anymore, please heal me. I want Your courage instead.”
• “Lord, I’m sorry for rejecting patience, and of wanting to be impatient. I don’t want it anymore, please heal me. I want Your patience instead.”

Then we are finally ready to receive the peace we’ve been asking for.

Because repentance is the proof that we truly want to change.

This is how prayers begin to bear fruit. Repentance is not punishment; it is the necessary act of opening up our free will to receive what God already longs to give us.

Final Truth

Ignorance of our sins, blaming externals, or declaring “But I don’t want to be insecure or angry!” does not excuse us. These declarations simply reveal our lack of self-awareness. We need to humble ourselves and let God show us the pride and selfishness we hold, the lies we believe, and the wants/desires we excuse.

If we refuse, then we continue rejecting God, even while asking for His help and healing.

God is Truth, Love, and Virtues. To reject any one of them—even interiorly—is to reject Him. And God will not force Himself upon us.

Therefore, until we repent—truly, deeply, specifically, and repeatedly—we will remain blocked.

Repentance is not optional. It is the only way to align our free will with God’s Will, and to receive what He desires for us: lasting healing, peace, contentment, fulfillment, wholeness, and freedom.