I have been privileged to pray with Christians in other countries in a variety of settings. In the Czech Republic I stood with worshippers who prayed with hands folded for an extended time as one person after another led in spontaneous prayer. I witnessed the praying of hundreds of South Korean Christians who gathered at five o’clock in the morning to pray for their nation. They prayed aloud, in unison, a great chorus of intercession. It was my privilege to gather with thousands of Ethiopian believers who met on a mountaintop for an annual prayer retreat. They were there to pray for revival and the spread of the gospel in their nation.
These believers took seriously the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-11, when he told his disciples, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” This is an audacious promise. We are tempted to hesitate, to equivocate, to doubt. After all, we are small and insignificant. God is great, and he has a universe to run!
But our Lord Jesus is repeating a direct command: “Ask, seek, knock.” He goes on to say that every Christian may pray this way, boldly and confidently, whether they live in Europe, Asia, or Africa. I hope my American brothers and sisters are praying as fervently and as passionately for our nation as the believers I observed overseas were praying for theirs.
To illustrate this, the Lord asks us to imagine a child coming to a parent with a request for something to eat. Earthly fathers and mothers, even though they are not perfect people, know how to give good things to their children. If this is true, how much more will our heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him in faith? He wants us to come to him with our needs.
Someone might raise the objection that prayer is unnecessary because God already knows what we need. There is an obvious answer to this. Our praying is not to inform God, or to overcome his reluctance. He wants us to pray because it is a way of acknowledging our dependence on him and our devotion to him.
Another possible objection is that prayer does not always work! God does not always give us what we ask for. “I prayed for a job, and I am still unemployed.” “I prayed for healing, and I am still sick.” The best way to think about this is that God is not a cosmic vending machine. We must come to him on his terms. He may say “no” to a prayer of ours because he has a higher purpose than we can see at first. We can be as thankful for unanswered prayers as for answered prayers.
There are examples in the Bible of famous believers who prayed and did not receive what they asked for. Abraham prayed for the city of Sodom to be spared, but God destroyed it anyway. King David prayed for his baby to live. The child died. The apostle Paul prayed repeatedly for his “thorn in the flesh” (possibly a physical affliction) to be removed, but the Lord said “no.” God had something else in mind. Paul was to learn humility and to rely on God’s grace.
The fact is, our human understanding is so limited, we do not always have the wisdom to know what is best for us (Romans 8:26). If God gave us everything we asked for, that would be a terrible burden to bear. We would be left to our own limited understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). The best way to pray is the way Jesus prayed: “Your will be done,” the prayer that never fails.
Jesus’ encouragement to us in Matthew 7 is to pray boldly, persistently, with faith, bringing our desires to the Father. His “ask, seek, knock” is a reminder that the Father welcomes our prayers. He is a good Father. He gives only good gifts to his children.
Pastor Randy Faulkner