And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (Luke 11:9-13)So what happens if God doesn’t answer? what if you ask and ask and he says nothing?
You pray and you fast and you seek and you knock and you ask, but God is silent. What do you do then?
There is no easy answer to this question. God is good and all that he does is good. I know that for a fact.
Yet sometimes he ignores me.
I know that old cloying aphorism that says, “Well, God’s answer sometimes doesn’t come right away. Sometimes he says, Wait.”
For the most part, I think that comment is garbage. If my children are hungry, I feed them. If they come to me to be with me, I talk to them. In fact, if my kids needed anything at all and I had it to give, I would do so in a moment. I do not make them ask again and again.
The word here says that God is greater than I. And he is. But it also says that he treats me better than I treat my kids.
Why then do I continue to feel alone? Someone always brings up the old comment that is designed to produce guilt. They will say, you just don’t have enough faith.
People who question your faith usually do not know what they are talking about, nor do they really understand the nature of God or the Bible. All they know is how to make you feel guilty.
God does not require a mountain of faith. All he expects is that you believe that he hears you. That is what it says here.
And he wants you to continue in the relationship with him.
I do not know why he wants me to bug him. He knows my heart and he knows my needs. It doesn’t seem like it would be productive or enjoyable to hear someone ask again and again. He also tells us not to babble on and on like pagans (Matthew 6:7). Asking again and again sounds a lot like that.
I don’t have a good answer. I know I have a good God and that he loves me.
That will have to do for now.
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