I come from a family where you don't ask people for things. It makes you feel indebted, like you owe them something. We just don't want that hanging over our heads. To this day, I don't like free stuff. I'd rather pay for something than be given it.
As a result, you can imagine that I used to struggle with the concept of grace. Many of us are wired to try to earn favor with God — which of course isn’t even possible. We are wired to feel like God is upset at us. When I’m about to go through the airport’s international Customs, my wife always warns me to take my guilty face off. It’s my natural look.
If you’re like me, it can take some time — maybe years — for it to sink in that God not only loves us, but he also likes us. He wants to give us good things. He’s not the proverbial cowboy god waiting for an excuse to blow you away. God wants to give you good things. And, yes, discipline is a good thing for us when we need it. It helps get us back on a path that is actually best for us. We should ultimately be grateful for it, as unpleasant as it may seem.
Luke 11:10-11 make all this very clear. Good parents give good gifts to their children. If your boy is hungry and starving for some fish, you don’t hand him a snake. You don’t give a scorpion to your daughter when she has asked for an egg. Humans aren’t even righteous by nature, and we do that much.
So, you can imagine how much God — the perfect Father — wants to give us good things. “Every good and perfect gift” comes from God (James 1:17). We can know this with our heads, but many of us need to feel it in our bones.
If you’re on this side of the human extreme, you need to hear these verses! “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9). The Greek uses the present tense here. It’s not a one-time thing. It’s something we should be doing in an ongoing way, recognizing our never-ending dependence on God. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. God will answer.
Of course, not everyone struggles with this extreme. Unlike those who see God as a twisted sheriff, others see him as a cosmic ATM that grants our every wish. For them, the danger is taking God’s goodness for granted. They are more prone to struggle when God does not grant their every whim and fancy. “Doesn’t it say ask and you will get? What’s going on here?”
1 John 5:14 is extremely helpful in this regard. It clarifies that if we ask anything, “according to his will,” he will hear us. John 15:7 similarly gives the condition that receiving is based on remaining in Christ. “Remain in me,” Jesus says, and his words will be in us. Then when we ask, we know we will receive because we are sharing his words.
This arrangement may feel like a catch-22 to a person whose life is centered on themselves. However, prayer was never meant to revolve around our desires. It’s about joining God in his purposes. “What? You mean I only receive if I am in sync with God’s will?” Yes. That’s how it works.
It’s a reminder that God and Christ must always be the focus. We are not. For most of history, this fact was probably painfully obvious. But in our self-centered modern context, it is easy to think that we are the focus. We may not even realize that our lives are oriented in that way. A self-focused person is often the last person to realize that they are self-centered.
The good news is that if we are truly surrendered to God, our values will align with him. As we recognize his character in Scripture, we will become more and more like him. As we increasingly understand his love for us, we will become more and more loving both toward him and others — including our enemies. The more we are like him, the more our requests will align with his will. We will ask in his name because we truly want everything to be for his glory (1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17).
Luke 11 gives the example of someone who pesters his neighbor until he finally gives him what he needs. It’s reminiscent of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-8. The point is not that God must be bugged if you want to get anything out of him. The point is that God isn’t like that. God’s bias is to give us what we ask because he loves us.
What we need the most is the Holy Spirit. The passage ends in Luke 11:13 with God’s promise to give us the Holy Spirit. God never will deny anyone his Holy Spirit if we genuinely ask. What a tremendous gift — better than a fish or an egg for sure! The Holy Spirit will not only supply our needs, but he will be with us through times of sorrow or suffering, give us the words to say, guide us to the truth and show us when we turn the wrong way.
So, ASK! Wouldn’t it be unfortunate if there were gifts we didn’t receive from the Lord because we never asked? SEEK! How many treasures might we find if only we let the Holy Spirit guide us to them? KNOCK! If the door doesn’t open, it’s because it isn’t God’s best will for us or the kingdom. Yet you can rest assured that if we are listening, God will lead us to doors he is delighted to open.
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