![]() He said we spend most of our time doing this, we never get a satisfactory answer and live our whole lives wondering. Prayer should be a conversation not a list of demands.Ī friend of mine who is a self professed atheist said to me once, the most stupid question people ask is Why. Harold am I hearing you say that God is capricious. So it is not really, “Where is God?” but rather, “Where are the Christians?” If we are not willing to be answers to our own prayers, we have no business praying about them. Which is why, of course, as you point out, it is silly to pray for something good to happen if we are unwilling to life a finger to help it take place. In this way, prayer is a type of work, but which is not bound by space and time. If not, well, I guess He’ll let it go to weeds). So if He wants me to have a harvest, He will plant, water, and tend the field. If He wants me to stay dry, He’ll keep back the rain) or planting a field for a crop (Well, God knows if I should have a harvest from this field this fall. Lots of people use this as an objection to prayer, but as CS Lewis points out (I think it is in his on Work and Prayer), nobody would ever use this excuse about taking an umbrella with us when it looks like it is going to rain (Well, God knows what is best. In this way, praying is more than just asking God for things and then sitting around, waiting for Him to respond. Step out and seek ways that He might answer them, and then knock on the doors of opportunity that are presented. Sometimes we have to knock on ten, fifty, even hundreds of doors.įor this reason, the knocking phase is often the most difficult, but it is here that perseverance is vitally important if we are going to see answers to our prayers.ĭon’t just ask God for things. Sometimes the first door we knock on is the one that opens, but this is usually not the case. And when we knock, we step out and take risks with faith by pursuing opportunities that were brought to our attention during the seeking phase. When we seek, we seek possible answers with eyes of faith. After we ask God to help us with our needs, and as we seek for possible ways that God might answer our requests, we must then step out in faith and knock on the doors that present themselves. Seeking answers to our prayers leads to the third step in getting our prayers answer: knocking. After we ask God for something, the next thing we must do is start looking around with eyes of faith for how God might be providing answers to the issues we discussed with Him. Seeking is when we look around for how God might answer our prayers. ![]() Seekīut after we ask, we don’t simply keep asking. ![]() Just as we talk over the issues of our day with our spouse or friends, so also God wants us to communicate with Him about the issues and needs which are heavy on our hearts and minds. ![]() It is not that He is unaware of our needs, for He knows what we need before we ask Him (Matthew 6:8). It is taking our requests and needs to God, and presenting them before Him. Jesus is not simply telling His disciples to pray, but is giving them instructions on how to see answers to their own prayers. In other words they read “Ask, seek, knock” as “Pray, pray, and pray again.”īut there may be a better way of understanding the words of Jesus. When reading Matthew 7:7-8, most people think that Jesus was saying the same thing three different times: pray, and your prayer will get answered. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). Jesus taught us to be answers to our own prayers when, in the Sermon on the Mount, 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. ![]()
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