Before we can expect our God to give us the things we need, we have to ask. It’s super obvious. But I think we sometimes need to be reminded. We need to ask.
Around the table during that last meal with his apostles, Jesus told them several times, just ask. “Whatever you ask.” “You may ask me for anything.” “Whatever you ask.” “Whatever you ask.” “Ask and you will receive.”
The question for Jesus and his disciples — the question for us — is never, “Does God have the power to meet my needs?” The question always is, “Do I have the dependence on him and the presence of mind to ask?”
But that sounds too simple. Just get on my knees and recite my needs? That’s it? There’s gotta be more to it than that. Don’t I need to be doing something else? Something more? And if we’re not careful we wind up sounding like Naaman at the Jordan River: “This is it? If this is it, I’m outta here. Never mind.”
That’s why a lot of the times prayer is our last resource. We want to exhaust all of our own resources first. We want to do everything we can first — something tangible and practical. And if that fails (WHEN that fails), then we pray. You walk into a hospital room and say, “Let’s pray” and the patient panics. “Oh, no, has it come to that?!?” No, prayer is the first thing we do, not the last thing we try when everything else has failed.
See, I think Satan loves that. As long as he can keep us from asking God, as long as he can keep us depending on ourselves and not God, he’s got us.
“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.” ~1 Chronicles 29:11-12
The only uncertainty as it relates to prayer is in our willingness to ask. God knows what we need. And he can’t wait to give it. But we have to ask. It’s the asking that displays our dependence.
Peace,
Allan
You wrote: “See, I think Satan loves that. As long as he can keep us from asking God, as long as he can keep us depending on ourselves and not God, he’s got us.”
And it made me think about Jeremiah 17:
“5 This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 He will be like an Arara in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”