Jesus said, “Ask…”

Jesus once said, “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

I have a friend who tells me that this passage has often troubled him – in fact to the point that he doesn’t like to preach on it, because, on the surface, it sounds like Jesus is equating God with a cosmic bellhop. What do you want? I’ll get it for you… It appears to be a god who is at our beck and call – which feels like a diminishment – and not true. 

He said I’ve known far too many people over the years who hold this view of God: I only pray when I’m in trouble, or I pray when I need something… But what happens when God doesn’t deliver when or who they want?  

I agree there is a danger in that. But I understand this passage a little differently. I understand it not as a promise that we can have whatever we want, but more as a beautiful invitation to a spiritual journey: 

Jesus said: Ask… 

Elie Wiesel, the great author and survivor of the holocaust, once wrote: “Within the word question, there is a beautiful word – quest.” He said, “I love that word. We are all partners in a quest.”

In part, I believe, Jesus was inviting us to a spiritual quest. 

Some people think it is not okay to ask questions. When I was newer to the faith, I visited churches where I was made to feel I was in danger of the fires of hell simply because I asked questions. The implication was that if I’d just get my relationship with Jesus right, I wouldn’t have the questions. “You just have to have faith!” I was told. Looking back, I did have faith, but faith has no way to grow if we can’t ask the questions.

I wonder what questions you are asking right now, about life, the world around you, about your faith. I pray that your questions would be open, honest, soul-searching questions, questions that invite others along the journey with you. Even when the answers are far from evident, may you trust not only that God is big enough to handle them, but also that God is as good as Jesus promised.

Let us pray: Loving God, being human we are confronted with mystery at every turn. And we struggle to know why things happen as they do. We ask you to meet us in our questions. Lead us deeper into mystery and deeper into faith. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.