“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7
Relationships are a key part of our lives. Being a friend and having friends is something most of us want. This need for relationship is something we’re born with. It’s in us, and we long for it to be fulfilled. We do these activities outlined in Matthew 7 (asking, seeking, and knocking) with each other. We ask our friends for things, we seek things with them, and we knock on their door and it’s opened to us.
Our walk with the Lord is very similar. As believers, we long to be in close relationship with the Lord, which is exemplified by our willingness to ‘sit at his feet’ just like Mary did (Luke 10:39), listening to his teaching. We don’t literally sit at his feet, but, if our desires are real, we read his teachings, and think on them. Questions are sure to follow, answers to which we ask and seek of the Lord. And the answers come, not always being what we wanted to hear. We ‘knock on heaven’s door’ in our prayers, and there are definitely times when we feel that it swings wide for us.
The result of our asking, seeking, and knocking is the Lord’s attentiveness to us, even (or especially) when we don’t feel it. His goal is to give us what we need, which doesn’t always line up with what we want. I believe if we’re honest with ourselves, this is true most of the time. Our difficulty arises when we get upset with what we need, not what we want. In Matthew 6:8, we find our needs are known before we ask.
As we go through our daily lives, we do these three things without even thinking about them. We ask questions, look for things, and literally or figuratively knock to open doors. It’s always best to seek with hands open rather than clenched. During the day, pay attention to how you do this. Before you talk with someone about something, do you have an opinion at the ready, judgment ‘locked and loaded’? If this is how things go for you, maybe say a prayer of blessing over that person first. It might be surprising how things turn out.
By Rich Obrecht
