A few years ago I planned a special trip to spend some one-on-one time with my daughter Lulu before her high school graduation. We hopped on a flight across the country, rented a car, and drove four hours into Northern California to a campsite in the mountains for a weeklong father-daughter retreat. It was beautiful. Dozens of other dads had made the journey with their daughters. Of course, I didn’t realize that God had plans not just to strengthen my relationship with my daughter but to draw me closer to Him as well.

There were things I didn’t research very well about this camp experience. So, I was surprised to find we were completely disconnected from technology. The accommodations were much different from what I had anticipated. I’d assumed that since this was a father-daughter camp, Lulu and I would be sharing a comfortable cabin. I was mistaken. Instead, we were split up, and I found myself sleeping on a bunk bed in a cabin with nine other dads. Offstage I tend to be a somewhat private person, so spending a week bunking with strangers was not exactly my idea of relaxing. By the end of the week, though, I had created some incredible new friendships. I stayed up with the other dads late into the night, laughing like we were at a junior-high church camp all over again.

The week was filled with tough obstacle courses, rope climbing in the redwood trees, cookouts, swims in the lake, s’mores, and some powerful worship time. It was an outdoorsman’s paradise filled with the types of activities that pushed this city-raised Chicago boy out of his comfort zone.

Here is what I was told to say:

• I will never leave you.

• You can ask me anything.

• You should listen only for the sound of my voice.

apart from others—awards, straight A’s, championships, applause. But while the world tells us to build our identities, God invites us to receive our identities. That’s where prayer becomes so key. When we come to God in prayer, we’re not performing. We’re not hustling. We’re not earning a title. We’re coming home. We’re remembering who we are and whose we are.

A friend of mine tells a story that illustrates why we struggle with identity. He was trying to give away a nice couch at his yard sale, so he put a sign on it that read “Free to a good home.” Dozens of people walked by this really nice couch and shook their heads. Some even asked him suspiciously what was wrong with it. Finally, frustrated, he changed the sign to read “$50.” The very next person who walked into his sale bought it without hesitation. People are suspicious of free things. But isn’t that how we treat God’s grace and His identity for us? We feel like we have to hustle, impress, and separate ourselves from others to earn what God has already given us. But our truest self—our identity—isn’t something we earn. It’s a gift. Paid for by Jesus and offered freely.

Your identity in Him is unshakable and unchanging. The Bible tells you that you are not your title, you are not your worst or best moment, you are especially not your most viewed Instagram reel. It says that you and I are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession” (1 Peter 2:9). And the verse ends saying we were called from darkness into light so we can declare God’s praises. That’s identity with a purpose. So the next time the world tries to rename you, the next time your failures or your fears start talking louder than God’s promises, I challenge you to pray, “Lord, remind me who I really am.” Staying close to your Creator is the only way to fully embrace your true identity as a child of the one true King!

Before we set out on this journey together, we have to talk about some common obstacles we all face in prayer. The Bible tells us to “pray continually” (1 Thess. 5:17). But why does it seem so easy for us to let virtually anything and everything get in the way of our prayer life? I often go to bed with a million thoughts running through my mind from the day. The long list of stuff I didn’t have time to get done. The difficult business meeting that didn’t go the way I had hoped. Maybe a dude who cut me off in traffic or an awkward conversation with a friend. The worries about tomorrow. And I wake up with my head spinning with a million more thoughts about the day ahead of me—the long checklists of work to be done, family to attend to, bills to pay, meetings to attend… everything but prayer. To be honest with you, sometimes I think it is easier for me to sit down and write a chapter of a book or a new song about prayer rather than actually spend time talking to Jesus. It is frustrating how easily I can let my work, my busyness, my will, my worries, and my shame get in the way of spending time with my heavenly Father. As I have talked to people—both pastors and regular folks like you and me—I’ve found that we all have similar roadblocks that keep us from our time with God. Before we go any further, we need to remember the truths that can help us clear the path and refocus on the kind of prayer connection that can bring us closer to Him.

I’m guessing there are people reading this book who shook their heads as we talked about “prayer blocks.” I know some people have bigger worries than just busyness or the minutia of everyday life. People who are really hurting right now from prayers that have gone unanswered. I think it would be helpful to explain how those three questions I learned at that camp with Lulu came crashing into my life again recently and made me look more closely at my prayer life. I’d like to tell you the behind-the-scenes story that led me to pick up my old Gibson guitar in the Story House studio and start writing the song “Don’t Stop Praying.” I think it is important to address the season of helplessness and desperation that led me to write this book about prayer.

I’ve been on the road doing music and ministry long enough to learn that everyone has something or someone that they’ve been praying about for a long time. Almost everybody has faced a faith-testing situation that leaves them searching for hope and yearning for answers, wondering how to keep holding on when the outcomes remain unseen. No matter how long the wait or how difficult the journey is, can we continue to pray? If so, how?

Taken from Don’t Stop Praying: The God Who Hears is Just a Breath Away. Copyright © 2026 by Matthew West. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, www.thomasnelson.com.