Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. [Matthew 7:7 (NIV)]
Ask, seek, and knock—three easy instructions. Ask. Ask as if we mean it, as if we truly care about the answer. Ask as if we believe we’re being heard. Ask with the hunger of a beggar begging bread. Ask with the fervor of someone sinking in quicksand pleading for help. Ask with the thirst of a dying man in the desert requesting water. Ask as if our very lives depend on the answer. Ask.
Seek. Seek as if we were searching for something of value—not a cursory look as if we’d lost a button or dropped a paper clip. Seek as we would for a lost wedding ring, wallet, or child. Seek as we would for an exit from a burning building. Seek by adding efforts to our prayers; after all, we can’t ask God for a harvest without first planting the seeds. Seek as if we care, as if our very lives depended on finding it. Seek.
Knock. Knock as if we truly wanted to enter. Knock with confidence—not shyly as if we don’t know whose door we’re at or timidly as if we’re not sure we’re welcome. Knock and keep knocking as if we desperately need the door to be answered, as if our very lives depended on it. Knock.
We have a promise—God’s promise—and we must ask, seek, and knock as if we believe that promise! Where there is a praying heart, He promises we’ll find a listening God—a God who loves us as a father loves a child. Like a good parent, however, no matter how fervently we ask, how diligently we seek nor how hard we knock, He won’t give us stones or snakes or anything bad for us. While there will be no money for drugs when we need rehab, no car when a bicycle will do, no escape from facing consequences, and even no healing when God’s presence in our pain is enough, there will be mercy, peace, grace, patience, wisdom, strength against sin, and understanding. Rather than sell, loan or rent us His gifts, He gives them to us because He loves us! Trust His promise to generously give good things to those who ask, seek, and knock.
In the early church, it was common for believers to gather together for prayer and, when Peter was imprisoned, they gathered to pray for his release at the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark. For a people who believed in prayer, it’s ironic that Peter thought the angel that freed him to be a mere vision until he found himself free on the city streets and that the church was astonished when he showed up at Mary’s house! Amazing things can happen when the church prays for its leaders. Prayers broke Peter’s chains, imagine what they can do for our pastors!
The story is told about a pastor who was shaking hands with his congregation after church one Sunday morning when a little boy handed him a dollar. After thanking him, the pastor asked what it was for. The youngster replied, “It’s for you, because I heard my daddy say that you were the poorest preacher that we ever had.” How easy it is to criticize our pastors when, instead, we should be praying for them.
While sorting through comic strips I’d saved, I came across an old Beetle Bailey (written by Greg and Mort Walker). In it, the inept General Halftrack approaches the chaplain and says, “I’d like to talk to God like you do, but when I try to talk to him, He doesn’t answer.” Chaplain Stainglass replies, “Maybe you’ve been calling the wrong number!” Indeed, sometimes the silence seems deafening when we call on God but I don’t think it’s because we’ve called the wrong number. The general simply may have hung up too quickly! Abraham determinedly pled for the city of Sodom, Hannah untiringly prayed for a son, Elijah persisted in praying for rain, and the Syrophoenician woman stubbornly begged Jesus to heal her daughter. They continued to call and God answered them all! Then again, maybe the General was so busy talking, that he didn’t hear God answer him!
Thirty years ago, Al Franken played a character on Saturday Night Live named Stuart Smalley. Host of a fictitious self-help show called “Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley,” Stuart would look into in a mirror and affirm that he was good enough, smart enough, and that people liked him. A member of several twelve-step programs, Stuart often shared maxims like, “Denial Ain’t Just a River in Egypt!” along with affirmations that he was entitled to his share of happiness and (my personal favorite) that it is easier to put on slippers than to carpet the world.
Whenever we were with my mother-in-law, she would say, “Come, sit down, and rest for a bit.” Since I usually was busy preparing a meal or doing some task for her, I’d say, “Not now, Grandma, maybe later!” Now that she’s gone, I wish I’d spent a few more minutes sitting and resting with her. I thought of her this morning when reading Jesus’ words urging the disciples to find a quiet place to rest awhile.
Devotions of the Heart 