The Question I Keep Bringing Him

on dreams we quietly set down, and the God who never asked us to be certain — only honest

I don’t think people abandon their dreams because they’ve failed too many times.

I used to think that. I used to think there was a threshold — enough closed doors, enough not yet’s, enough disappointment — and once you crossed it, you were allowed to quit. Like failure itself was a permission slip.

But I don’t believe that anymore.

I think people abandon their dreams long before the failures pile up high enough to justify it. I think it happens quietly, in a moment nobody names out loud — the moment they stop believing God is actually good. And that He actually wants good for them.

Not an easy life. Not a comfortable one. I’m not talking about the version of faith that promises smooth roads if you just believe hard enough — I stopped believing that a long time ago, and it nearly cost me more than the disappointments themselves did. I’m talking about something quieter, and harder to hold onto: the belief that even on the roads that aren’t smooth, He is still for you. Still working. Still shaping something in you that the easy road never could have.

Here’s what I keep coming back to.

Somewhere in the middle of my own story — the parts I didn’t order, the parts that looked nothing like what I’d prayed for — I had to answer a question I didn’t know I was even being asked.

Is God still good, even now?

Not “is my life good.” Not “did this turn out the way I wanted.” Just — is He good. Because everything else hangs on that one answer.

If He is good, the unclosed door isn’t proof I misheard Him.
If He is good, the delay isn’t denial.
If He is good, then whatever this is I’m walking through right now isn’t the end of who I was always meant to become — it might be how I actually get there.

I think that’s the real reason so many of us quietly set our dreams down. Not because we ran out of strength. Because we stopped trusting the character of the One who placed the dream inside us in the first place.

So if you’re standing right now where it would be easier to just let go — can I ask you gently?

Is it really the failures? Or is it that somewhere along the way, you started quietly wondering if God is truly good — if He is really for you?

Because friend, if that’s you — hear me: He is fighting for you, and He won’t give up, even if you do. Even here. Even now, in this version of the story you didn’t order. Especially here.

You are still becoming who you were always meant to be. That hasn’t changed. It might just look different than what you expected.

I understand that more than you know.

There have been so many seasons I believed God was for everyone else, but not for me. And I’ve since learned — it wasn’t Him who put that belief in me. It was something else entirely. I grew up believing love was like everything else I’d known: conditional. That if I could just be perfect, do everything right, hold it all together — then my life would be too.

But friend, that is the furthest thing from the truth. That is not how God works. He is so much better than the world’s economy of earning.

You see — God’s purpose was never to give us the life we always wanted. It’s always been to give us the life we never thought we could have.

This past week, I sat on a cliff at the edge of the ocean — the same cliff I’ve sat on more times than I can count — and I remembered every version of myself who had sat there before, certain she was invisible to God. Certain He didn’t see the brokenness eating her from the inside out. Certain she was barely holding on, wondering if her life mattered at all.

But this time was different.

I felt that old hopelessness rise up — faint now, like a scar more than a wound — and instead of drowning in it, I thanked God. For carrying me through that season. For giving me a life so different than the one I’d imagined, and somehow, impossibly, so much better. Even with all the loss. Even with the pain still tucked into the folds of me. Underneath all of it, He’d been there the whole time — making me into who I was always meant to be, one wave at a time.

Have you ever been there, friend? In a place of hopelessness, wondering if God had anything good stored up for you at all?

If so — you are not alone. Not even a little.

The deeper I go into His word, the more I find women and men who stood exactly where you’re standing.

Naomi said God had made her life bitter, after burying her husband and both her sons.
David asked, over and over in the Psalms, where God had gone — and why He’d forgotten him.
Jonah believed God’s call was a punishment, not a purpose.
Job sat in his suffering and dared to ask God why, out loud, unafraid.

And not one of them was abandoned for asking.

Naomi came home empty and left with a grandson in her arms who would be counted in the line of Christ Himself. David’s most honest, unraveling psalms became the prayers the whole world still prays. Jonah’s detour became the very story that taught mercy to a nation. Job’s suffering ended not with an explanation, but with God Himself — showing up, closer than Job had ever known Him to be.

Maybe that’s the thread through all of it, and through this letter, and through your story too: God was never asking you to feel certain. He was only ever asking you to keep bringing Him the question.

So bring it to Him, friend. Whatever you’re standing in front of right now — the dream you’re tempted to fold up and put away, the door that hasn’t opened, the version of your life you’re still grieving. Bring Him the honest question instead of the quiet surrender.

Are You still good? Are You still for me, in this?

He can hold that question. He’s been holding it since Naomi. Since David. Since Job sat in the ashes and refused to look away from God even when God felt far away.

And He’s holding it now, with you — on whatever cliff you’re standing on, in whatever chapter you didn’t order, becoming who you were always meant to be.

What’s the question you keep bringing Him lately? I’d love to hear it in the comments — you never have to say it alone.

With you in it,
Ruthann xo

P.S. If my words are resonating with you — would you be so kind to share them with others who they could minister to? Thank you for being here, I couldn’t do what I do without your love and support.

And as always, I’d love to hear from you!