“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Matthew 7: 7-11, NKJV.
Merciful God, we enter Your holy presence prayerfully. We ask that Your Holy Spirit will draw near, and lead us in the study of Your Holy Word. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.
We have come to a very interesting portion of the study of God’s Word, praying, and receiving, what we have asked for. This command is clear. It does not leave any place for us to doubt that God means what He says. It is an open door that all who dare to take God at His Word, may enter. God goes a step further; He compares His response to our prayer, to that of an earthly parent’s response to the request of his or her child. Can we love our children more than God loves us, His children? We all know what the answer to that question is, a resounding “No!”
Then how do we reconcile the certainty of God’s promises, with the many seemingly unanswered prayers? As I wrestle with this question myself, I am reminded how limited we are, as human beings. I think of the times when I have given my children gifts that, I believed were better than the gifts they were asking for. Perhaps in their minds, their requests had not been answered, when in fact they were – to their benefit. With that thought in mind, I began to read the second half of the text, in reverse: Or what man [or woman] is there among you who, if his [her] son asks for a stone, will not give him bread? Or if he [she] asks for a serpent will not give him [her] a fish? If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?”
To better understand the explanation that I am about to humbly submit for your consideration, let me share another text with you: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8: 26, 27, NIV). Emphasis supplied.
I wonder if sometimes in our limitations, and spiritual ignorance, our prayers sound as if we were asking God for a stone that could hurt us, when what we really needed was a loaf of bread. Or, if what we were about to reach out our hands and take hold of, believing it was a fish, was really a deadly serpent, that could represent our demise. But then the Spirit comes along, hears our prayer, and asks the Father for what we would have asked Him, if we knew what we should pray for. Now when God gives us what we really needed, we do not recognize in it what we prayed for, and we conclude that God has not answered our prayers – when in fact He has, like the good Parent that He is, by giving us what is “good!”
When we realize that what the apostle Paul was talking about were look-alikes (stones that had the shape of bread, and serpents that looked like fishes) we can say, “Thank You Abba, for not giving me what I asked for, but what was good!”