God instructs us in His Word to ask of Him. When we think of declaring, it really is putting a demand on the spiritual realm. People do not always understand that we can put a demand on God to ask, so why aren’t we asking? Religion has taught us to respect God, to be quiet and submit. We can be both respectful and submissive in the process of inquiring.
As we pray to God, we may receive revelation back into our soul and spirit. When we get this revelation, often we act on it without considering it any further. What we have to realize when we hear from God is that our own thoughts, our imaginations and the enemy can send confusion into our thinking. What if we thought we heard from God and it was really a different source we heard from? (I explain this more in my book, Who is Speaking?) Since people get confused in hearing, we should inquire of the Father to discern if the instruction we are hearing is truly from Him. We can test the spirits or the Scriptures to see if what we are receiving is lining up with the Word of God and in accordance with the direction we think God would give.
People think it is disrespectful to question God. We aren’t being disrespectful. We are making sure we aren’t looking to the left or right and are staying on the path our heavenly Father has laid out for us, not getting sidetracked along the way.
Our imagination is a wild thing. Our flesh can get involved with our own ideas, and the enemy can send confusion into the equation in order to prevent you from following God’s path. Inquiring of God to get the discernment you need will assist you in declaring for the revelation He has given you.
Changing our mentality to believe it is alright to inquire of the Lord and declare things according to His will aligns with Matthew 7:7: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.” “Ask” is an action word. People quote the following verse loosely, yet there is truth to it: “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2b). Asking involves opening our mouth and putting our faith to action. Instead of sitting around, waiting to see if God will give us something or change our situation, why don’t we pray and call forth the manifestation of our blessing or declare for our situation to change? He isn’t going to simply drop something out of the sky. He desires to hear His children communicate with Him.
We cannot sit silent and passive and always wait for the Lord to unction us in the spirit. In the Bible, we read that people went to inquire of the Lord:
“But the children struggled together within her; and she said, ‘If all is well, why am I like this?’ So she went to inquire of the Lord” (Gen. 25:22).
“So they said to him, ‘Please ask God if we may know whether our mission will be a success as we go to do it” (Judg. 18:5).
When we look at these Scriptures, we see that they questioned God. Many of us would not dare question God; we would take our prayer revelation at face value. Did you ever stop to think that perhaps God was going to add additional instructions, but you left your prayer closet too early, and by going back to inquire of Him, you would have received information pertinent to the direction He gave you?
Of course, we don’t think that way. We assume God is done speaking to us at that moment. What if you need to digest what He has given you before He can reveal more? What if you don’t realize that you got distracted or interrupted, or your flesh was tired of praying or sitting there, and you got up before it was time? God doesn’t always speak continuously. He will speak to us, allow us to process or write it down, even allowing us time to absorb it, and then He can speak to us again. When you are seeking revelation and direction, you need to pause and always wait and inquire and see if there is more. {eoa}
Kathy DeGraw is a prophetic spiritual warfare strategist releasing the love and power of God, to ignite and activate people, release prophetic destinies and deliver people from the bondage of the enemy. She is the founder of Kathy DeGraw Ministries and Be Love Outreach. She is the author of several books including; Speak Out, Discerning and Destroying the Works of Satan, Warfare Declarations and more. You can connect with Kathy on Facebook @ facebook.com/kathydegraw or visit degrawministries.org.
Ron Allen 
Eddie Hyatt 
Michael L. Brown