Asking God
Luke 11:9 (NIV) says, “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
I love the way Jesus presents this invitation to us. He shares these words in Luke after a parable about an audacious and shameless man who kept asking his neighbor for bread in the middle of the night. The neighbor finally gave up the bread not because they were friends but to get him off his case.
Jesus brings this message up differently in other gospels, so I get the sense that his teaching of asking, seeking, and knocking was something he brought up often. Each time, Jesus was reminding his disciples two things: there is great value in pressing in after what we long for and that the Father is listening.
Most, if not all, believers have had an encounter with God, but sometimes that encounter was so long ago the memory is just information—not life-change. It is easy to stop asking when the community around you is living content or even complacent in their faith.
Most likely, the lukewarm state happened because people stopped asking. While all the grace to live a holy life comes from God, he has designed his kingdom to operate in response to the supplications (requests), intercessions (prayers), and devotion of believers.
Even today, in writing this devotional, I came to the Lord with a few questions: “God, will you give me the energy, gratitude, and insight to write today? Father, what do you want me to write about?” His response was so clearly to write about asking from the Gospel of Luke.
All through the process, I have been asking God to guide and direct me. Of course, I am learning what it means to be responsive and obedient to the Lord, but that will be a life-long pursuit.
I want to encourage you to try and ask the Lord for something today. You’re allowed to ask for joy when you’re feeling down. You’re allowed to ask for peace when you feel stressed. You’re allowed to ask for strength when you feel weak.
God offers these things to us as we ask him. Then the journey of grace becomes alive and active. It turns into a forever lesson of how to trust and obey the answers that God brings.
I believe with my whole heart that God has designed his people to live and learn to be responsive and connected to him at all times. This is the essence of abiding daily in the vine. God desires us to be connected to him.
So ask.
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