“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
These are some of Jesus’ best-known words about prayer.
But if we read verse 7 by itself, we can easily misunderstand His promise.
Does Jesus mean that if we pray long enough and hard enough, God will eventually give us whatever we want?
When we continue reading through verse 11, we discover something deeper.
The focus is not merely on how persistently we ask. The focus is on the One to whom we are asking.
Jesus gives three commands:
Ask.
Seek.
Knock.
Then He gives a promise.
The one who asks receives. The one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
But Jesus does not stop there.
He gives the picture of a father and his child.
If a son asks his father for bread, what father would give him a stone?
If he asks for a fish, what father would give him a snake?
The answer is obvious.
A loving father does not deliberately give his child something useless or harmful when the child comes to him with a need.
Then Jesus reaches His conclusion:
“If you, then, though you 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!”
Here we find the key to the whole passage:
Father.
Prayer is not a technique for manipulating spiritual power.
Prayer is a child coming to a father.
Therefore, our confidence in prayer does not ultimately rest on how long we pray, how emotional our prayer is, or how perfectly we choose our words.
Our confidence rests in the character of the One who hears us.
He is our Father, and He is good.
This also helps us understand the promise, “Ask and it will be given to you.”
Jesus does not say that the Father will give us everything we desire.
He says that the Father gives good things to His children.
Sometimes we may believe something is bread when God knows it will become like a stone in our lives.
We may believe something is a fish when God sees consequences that we cannot yet see.
This does not mean that we should be afraid to ask.
A child can speak honestly to a loving father.
We can pray:
“Father, I need this.”
“Please open this door.”
“Please change this situation.”
“Please answer this prayer.”
But faith adds another confession:
“Father, You know better than I do what is truly good for me.”
Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly speaks about God as our Father.
Our Father knows what we need before we ask.
Our Father feeds the birds and clothes the flowers.
Our Father knows what His children need.
And now Jesus tells those children:
“Ask.”
Why should we ask if the Father already knows?
Because prayer is not about giving God information He does not have.
Prayer is an expression of dependence.
When we pray, we are saying:
“I cannot live by my strength alone.”
“I cannot control everything.”
“I need You, Father.”
That is why we can continue to ask, seek, and knock even when the answer seems delayed.
We are not trying to wear God down until He gives in.
We are continuing to come to the Father because we trust Him.
There will be times when we do not understand His answer.
There may be prayers we have prayed for years without seeing the answer we hoped for.
This passage does not explain every mystery of unanswered prayer.
Instead, it gives us something to hold on to in the middle of the mystery:
When you cannot understand the answer, do not lose confidence in the goodness of the Father.
We see today.
He sees the whole story.
We know what we want.
He knows what we truly need.
Faith in prayer, therefore, is not simply believing,
“God will certainly give me exactly what I ask for.”
It is believing,
“Whatever His answer may be, God remains my good Father.”
So ask.
Seek.
Knock.
But beyond the answer, look to the Father.
The Father knows.
The Father hears.
The Father is good.
And the Father gives good things.
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