ASK SEEK KNOCK

Matt 7:7-12

We encounter those famous words that have often been repeated and posterized and blown up and magnified and uses and reuses: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

This is normally where people stop quoting Jesus and add their own rendition to it such as wish upon a star, dream big, follow your dreams and other such foolishness.

God is not a cosmic bell hop.

God doesn't concern himself with our wants and desires unless they are what we need.

Later on in ch 7 Jesus says these words, which I find more inspiring, "If then you who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him."

First all, "If you then who are wicked…" implies that we have an inherent knock for making bad decisions.  We often want more than we need.  We give to the point of spoiling rather than helping and encouraging.  We are enablers and we expect God to enable us.  We don't always get it right.  Sometimes what we ask for isn't what we need at all.

But if we sometimes get it right then I suppose God must always get it right, so even his delay is a good, "how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him."

He will give good things.  St Thomas Aquinas states there is only three things that are good:  Virtuous, pleasant, useful.   There is a hierarchy in regards to these goods.  Pleasant isn't first but rather virtuous is.  Pleasant flows out of virtue and useful is that which will lead to virtue.

Maybe we should purify our ask, make it meaningful in the long run not just pleasant in the here and now.