And Another Thing . . . Ask, Seek, Knock
When I was a kid (and as it turns out that was a long time ago), our family trips were far more primitive than those trips are today. Our car had an AM radio, which my dad controlled. His listening choices always seemed to be either static or boring-- and sometimes both of those together. So, to amuse ourselves, we would play road games. One of my favorites, though it usually ended up with someone getting in trouble, was “Slugbug.” For the uninitiated, the rules to Slugbug were pretty simple. All the players examined the oncoming traffic looking for VW Beetles (or “Bugs”). The first player to see one shouted “Slugbug” and hit the other player or players on the shoulder. Of course, there was the inevitable cheating and bruising, followed by a parental halt to the whole fiasco. The interesting thing about the game though, was that once you started looking for Bugs, you found them.
Jesus said in Matt 7:7, “seek and you will find.” We tend to find the things we look for. When playing Slugbug my brain functioned much like a computer. I saw, for the most part, two kinds of cars:Bugs and Non-Bugs. (Corvette’s were always the exception; I always noticed them.) Scientists tell us that the part of the brain which helps us focus on these distinctions is called the Reticular Activating System, or RAS. Among other things, the RAS allows us to filter the data being received by our brain. Parents sleeping in a noisy apartment can become immune to the sounds of traffic and trains, but the sound of their child crying will instantly wake them. We are programmed to pay attention to the things we care about.
“Caring about” is the heart of the Ask, Seek, Knock passage. Jesus wants to be one of the things we care about. He wants his voice to be a voice we have trained ourselves to listen for. “Ask” implies relationship. We ask the people who are near us and who we believe are capable and willing to help. Jesus wants to be near us (Mt 28:20). He wants to be our help (Ps 46:1). He wants to be asked. James 4:2 says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.”
So, ask God for the stuff of your life. Let him become part of all that you do. Seek him. Knock on his door, just as he is knocking on yours (Rev 3:20). When you look for him, you will find him. Ask and it will be given. The “it” in this case is God. All of the things we ask for are ultimately, as Oswald Chambers puts it, to be “our utmost, for his highest.” When we ask for God, we receive him. When we seek him, we find him. When we knock, we find he has beaten us to the punch and he is already knocking on the door of our heart.
Ask, Seek, Knock is a formula for a relationship with God. That relationship will change the nature of our requests. As we know him better we will begin to honestly pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
As Rich Mullins used to say, “God will give you what you ask, only if he can think of nothing better to give you.”
And that is all I have to say about that . . . for now.
