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DIRECTIONS FOR PRAYER - PART 1 - ASK, SEEK, KNOCK

by Jerry Ousley  
9/13/2013 / Christian Living

You might remember the story of the little boy whom his father had introduced to a friend. When the boy's father's friend asked him, "What do you have to say young fellow?" The boy promptly asked, "Can you give me a nickel?" (Of course asking for a nickel reveals how old this story is because today the question would probably be "Can you give me five dollars?"). Somewhat startled, the man pulled a nickel from his pocket and gave it to the boy. His father, embarrassed by his son's forwardness looked at his son and said, "Now what do you say, son?" expecting a "thank-you" from the boy. Instead the boy looked straight up at the man and asked, "Can you give me another one?"

In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus tells us to do three things: ask, seek and knock. He is talking about prayer. How can we expect anything unless we ask? In my business of building websites it would be nice if all I had to do was wait for the phone to ring with someone on the other end of the line begging me to build them a website. But it doesn't work that way. I have to spend hours on the phone contacting businesses and asking them if they have ever considered a website for their company. Once I have an interested party then I normally have to call them three to five times over the next couple of months before they give me a final answer. I have to ask and I have to keep on asking until they say "yes" or "no."

But it doesn't end there. I have to seek. In other words, I've got to look for those businesses who don't already have a website and research them to see what they do, what they might be interested in on a website, and what domain names are available. I'm normally armed with this information before I ever ask.

As I said, I usually have to make several follow up calls before I get a straight answer from them and I usually have to make an appointment with them to talk face to face. That's knocking. If you go up to someone's home you'll never know if they are really home unless you knock on the door or ring the door bell.

The point is that even in prayer we have to ask, seek and knock. Why is that? At one point in my life I thought, "If we serve a God who knows everything about us, knows what we need, knows what we want from life and so forth, is He just being stubborn or lazy by making us ask, seek and knock?" It sounded reasonable. That is, until I discovered that God wants us to be involved in the solution to our problems. He is a good God. He wants nothing but the best for us. But if we don't care enough about our needs, or we are too proud to ask, seek and knock, then we most likely don't really need what we are looking for.

The secret to receiving from God is in our attitudes, our motives, and in what we are asking for. You see, it would be wonderful to instantly become a millionaire. Now wouldn't it? All our financial woes would come to an end. Everything we could possibly want or need would be instantly provided. But the fact of the matter is there are many millionaires and billionaires in this world who are not happy. Even though they are set financially for life, they continue to want more and more and more. That's because in most cases they really don't know what they want and ultimately what they have and what they get does not fulfill what they really need in their lives.

The secret is in asking, seeking and knocking for what God knows will bring fulfillment to us. If we do our research (seeking) taking inventory of our lives, our hopes, our dreams, and our desires, we will most likely discover that it isn't trinkets or things that make us happy, but relationships with people and with God. In seeking do your research. Find out if what you want can really make you happy and fulfill your relationship with the Lord. If so, then ask God for it. When we do we aren't just trying to make Him aware of what we need because He already knows it. But we are opening the door and becoming involved in what we are asking for. Finally, knock, not once; not twice, but until our answer comes. And it will come. If we are asking for what God has willed for our lives the answer will be "yes." But if we are asking out of selfishness, greed, and pride, our answer may be "no." Either way, God will give us the best answer. Now what are we going to do with it?

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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