Matthew 7:7-11
Asking God

"Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"

New Revised Standard Version

There is a set of issues that often interfere with my prayer life, and they all center around asking God for something. About the time I resolve one issue, I find I have stumbled into a different, related problem, so I thought I would share some of those, in case one sounds familiar to you.

"There are so many requests I want to ask of God."

There are times in my life when I obsess over my responsibility to pray for others. At those times, I will focus my prayers on the list of prayer requests in my PDA so intently that I lose the balance in my prayer life. My prayers become empty when I cut short my time to praise God, to meditate on God's Ways, and to listen for God. Even worse, when my prayers are centered around the requests I have made, I begin to assess the effectiveness of my prayers by requests God has granted. In short, I take on the role of dispatcher for God's ambulance service, and I become quickly dismayed at how ineffective I am in that role. I need to be balanced in my prayers, so I can hold onto a healthy concept of myself in relationship to God.

"I don't need to pray about it; I have it under control."

It is frightening to me not to be in control. Some of you know exactly what I mean. (And I just don't understand those of you who are not frightened by a lack of control!) Logically, I am assured that God is always in control, but emotionally, most of the fear in my life comes from a feeling of helpless vulnerability--and the older I get, the more I realize control is a mirage and a hoax. These lies even enter my prayer life when I choose to keep something "off the table" with God, as I cling to that false comfort of control, or as I seek to limit God's ability to change an area of my life I don't want changed. When Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, He wanted us to pray that God would provide even that which we think we have already provided for ourselves. In doing so, we learn to let go of the false comfort of our control, and trust in the true security of God's Love.

"That's not important enough to pray about."

One difficult concept for me to accept is the one given in Matthew 7--God is eager to hear and act on any of my prayers. I'm out of practice thinking like a child making requests; most often, I think like an adult receiving requests from my family, my workplace, my friends--and an endless string of suspicious-sounding non-profit organizations. There's a limit to what I can do, and there's a limit to how patient I can be, and I tend to project those same frustrations and limitations on God. Maybe that's why Jesus had to repeat the concept in this scripture passage: ask, search, knock. God is not a limited and flawed parent like I am, so I can ask, search, and knock about anything, and God will rejoice that I have looked outside myself to receive what God wants to give me.

"I could pray about it, but I know God's answer will be 'no'."

I don't know anyone who enjoys being turned down. When I let myself think about my prayers as requests to be accepted or rejected by God, I will find I become "risk averse" in my prayer life. This passage from Matthew 7 doesn't permit that kind of thinking! Jesus didn't say, "ask, and you will receive if what you asked is considered appropriate." Instead, Jesus tells us every prayer is answered with good things from God. My challenge is becoming aware of the good answers that God gives, rather than fixated on the answers I wanted to receive.

"I'd rather just accept God's Will than to try to express what I want."

This sounds very "holy," but it is really the same problem, in a "passive aggressive" expression, when I give up asking and just wait for God. After all, God already knows what I need, and God already wants to bless me with what is good for me, so why should I go through the frustration of praying for what isn't best for me? First, because I lose my ability to hear God speak when I stop trying to speak to God. Second, because expressing my will to God allows God to mold my will, while hiding my will from God makes me brittle and inflexible. Most of the time, prayer is less about changing my environment and more about changing me. After all, my environment is temporary, but I will live eternally in God's presence.


Jesus assured us that if we ask for a fish, our Father will not give us a snake. I wish Jesus had added that when I ask to be given a snake to eat, even when I have a plan for how to subdue, kill, and cook the snake, my Father will give me a fish instead. My Father wants to explain that to me as we talk about what I think I want, so I need to ask, search, and knock about anything and everything to be the servant of God I want to be.