Ask and . . . what?

Reflection by Fr. David

At our weekly Men’s Bible Study this morning, we discussed the final chapter of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which contains his famous words, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.” Hmm. If there are any words of Jesus that are easy to disprove, it would seem to be these. We can all think of things we have asked God for but have not received, right? Material goods. Healing. Peace in the Middle East. Our families to behave. I mean, really, how are we to understand this teaching?

Obviously the Santa Clause interpretation won’t work ― and it shouldn’t work. At the end of the passage, Jesus gives us the necessary clue: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” God wants to give us the good things of the kingdom, which certainly include love, wholeness, and abundant life. But more than that, those good things include God’s very self. That is no doubt why Luke’s version of this passage concludes: “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Whenever we pray in any way, we are entering into the flow of the Holy Trinity, the unceasing stream of love poured out from Father to Son through the Spirit and back again. To pray is to let that divine love flow through us; to ask God for specific things is to direct that flow into real and concrete circumstances. The promise is that we can always do that, and more importantly, that God wants us to do that and will always move through our prayers to love and bless.

Do we believe that? So often in my pastoral ministry I encounter people who feel like prayer means trying to get the attention of a distant God “out there” and hoping against hope that maybe God will care and pay attention. This is not the faith that Christ calls us to! Every act of genuine prayer is an act of surrender and trust: surrender to the flow of God’s Spirit through us and trust that God will not only respond to our prayer but is actually present in the act of praying itself. We don’t need to get God’s attention: we have it. We don’t need to finagle God’s love: it’s already ours. Imagine knowing that and trusting that each time we prayed!

It has made all the difference for me. Plenty of bad things happen, and suffering abounds in our world. But God is continuously seeking to move through us for blessing and healing in the midst of it all. When I enter a hospital room or pray with a hurting person in my office, I know that God will flow in that moment of prayer because God WANTS to. What God will do I cannot control, but I can pray with peace and confidence because I know God is already moving the very moment I join into the unending stream of God’s love and power that is within us always. No wonder Jesus says “Ask, and it will be given you.” The very act of asking gives us God. Everything else flows from that.