Last updated on January 19, 2023
Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8 CSB
Welcome back to Roots and Light! The summer has been an adventure in our household, that’s for sure! I haven’t been able to sit down at the computer and write to you all as much as I wanted.
May was a whirlwind of end of school activity, followed very quickly by the death of my second mom, which necessitated travel to Louisiana for the funeral. With that tragedy came the gift of time with extended family and a reminder of where I come from. It’s interesting how much family you meet at a funeral that you either didn’t know you had, or knew only by name.
Immediately following that unexpected trip, one of my children ended up in the hospital with a severe bacterial infection in his leg. That was a bit scary, but I am so thankful for the medical professionals at the children’s hospital where we stayed and for the modern marvel of antibiotics. He was kept comfortable, his ailment addressed promptly and efficiently, and the follow-up has been excellent. He’s pretty much healed now and looking forward to starting his new sport, competitive rock climbing, in August.
As I write today, I sit at my father’s dining room table in Denham Springs, Louisiana typing away on my laptop and anticipating the arrival of Tropical Storm Barry in the next twenty-four hours. I’m back here, because after seeing everyone in June, I decided I really wanted to make the trip down as often as possible and bring my kids with me so they could get to know their extended family.
I have the two youngest with me this trip and they continue to get excited at how many cousins they have that they didn’t know about. The trip has also given me an opportunity to step away from everyday life and the many task lists and obligations I’ve built up for myself and to just be.
So here I am, back at the keyboard, ready to share with you what the Lord has been teaching me about asking. What prompted me to go on this study adventure, which I will cover in a series of posts, was the realization that I don’t ask the Father as much as I should (there’s that “should”, indicating I’m feeling some shame here…. let’s kick that to the curb in the Holy name of Jesus, mmkay?).
I started wondering, “What keeps me from asking?” It’s not that there aren’t things to ask Him for, I assure you! If I were to sit down with a piece of paper, the list would fill up pages and pages. In previous seasons of my walk with Christ, when I was regularly and deeply asking, I enjoyed a holy, intimate companionship of deep conversation with my Father, especially over the trials in my life. Whether trials inside of myself our around me, I know from experience He loves to walk with me through both.
No, my issues right now are pride and foolishness. I’ve just not been inviting him in. I’ve been playing like I can handle my trials. Oh Sister, this is my downfall over and over. I don’t know if it’s because of my personality, the culture I live in here in the United States, how I was raised, or just my human nature, but I LOVE to try to handle any trial my own way.
Until I get to the end of my own capacity and indulge in anxiety, depression, anger, hopelessness, etc. That’s when I pray those desperation prayers in which I can’t even figure out what to ask.
So I just ask, “Father, help me!” And he does. I am so very thankful he does. Even when I’m asking to be rescued from my own pride and foolishness. What a gracious God I love.
And while God graciously still answers and intervenes when I offer up only desperation prayers, what he really desires is for me to be asking all along the way.
If this post series finds you in a season where you are also in need of asking the Father, I’m so glad you are reading. I did some digging through the New Testament for references to asking God for what we need and I think it offers great encouragement. I hope by the end of this trip through the scriptures that you and I will both be strengthened and ready to ask whatever it is we’ve been resistant to ask Him.
Why we can ask
First and foremost, before we talk about how to ask, or what to ask, we need to understand why we can ask. Why it’s even possible for us to have an open conversation with the Father, despite our sin that the holiness of God requires him to turn away from. Let’s see what his Son, the one who took on our sin and ugliness, and bore the agony of having his Father turn away, of being completely alone, has to say about asking.
A bit of background:
Before Jesus’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, he spent three years living nearly every moment with a group of twelve very dear friends. In his time with these men, he would teach them in figures of speech (metaphors and parables to get his point across). Just before he was arrested to be crucified, Jesus sat with eleven of these men and shared some final essential truths with them.
In the passage we are going to look at first, he has just discussed a woman’s sorrow in childbirth, followed by the joy of having the just-born child. At this point he had already told his friends that he would be put to death and they were sinking into sorrow at this news. Jesus says:
So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you. In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.
John 16:22-28 CSB
Jesus’s friends, the Disciples, did not fully understand at that moment why their friend had to be crucified and why they had to go through such sorrow. They wanted their “why” questions answered.
Beyond their understanding, Jesus tells them, “I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice and no one will take away your joy from you. In that day, you will not ask me anything.” In essence, he is explaining to them that all their “why” questions would be answered once he was raised from death and then ascended to his rightful place beside the Father in Heaven.
In this passage, Jesus speaks to them of two times.
- Their present time, when they didn’t quite understand what was going on, so he spoke to them about the Father in figures of speech (metaphors and parables to get his point across). They had sorrow, and would have sorrow at his death and the perceived failure of the Jesus movement.
- “That day,” the time when the sacrifice of Jesus’s blood would already be given, their debts would be paid, and they’d see him alive again. Then they would understand plainly about the Father and his Son, about what had happened in their lifetime for the good of all people of all times. Their joy would be so overwhelming in that moment of seeing their friend Jesus, their Savior, again, that they would have no inclination to ask him anything. And then he would ascend into Heaven, to sit beside the Father, and they would have his covering to be able to ask the Father for anything and their joy would never be taken from them again.
So Jesus encourages them to ask the Father, directly, for what is needed, as Jesus’s representatives, in his name, from then on: “Truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, He will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made complete….On that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”
Let’s recap this: The Father, himself, loved them because
- they had loved Jesus
- they believed he came from God
They would have direct access to the Father because
- Jesus paid for their sins
- Jesus defeated death by his power
- Jesus took his place with God in heaven
Because of all this:
- Anything they asked of the Father, as representatives of Jesus, would be given to them.
Wow.
Do you know this joyous news applies to us, as well? Because when we love Jesus, when we believe he came from God, his sacrifice covers our sins, and we gain direct access to ask the Father in Jesus’s name. Then when we are truly asking as Jesus’s representatives, with his motives and ways of loving rather than our own, the Father gives what we ask.
In Jesus’s name
There is an interesting little phrase in here that Jesus uses when telling us to ask the Father, and I want to take a second to discuss its implications.
Jesus says, “…in my name…”
If you’ve been in a church for any length of time, you may have heard “In Jesus’s name” tacked on to the end of most prayers. There’s a reason, and it’s not just a little phrase that goes next to the “amen.” This phrase has huge bearing on our asking.
When we come to the Father to ask, we are coming covered by the sacrificial blood of Jesus. He vouches for us with the Father. We can ONLY come to the Father because of Jesus. That’s what “In Jesus’s name” signifies.
Let’s look at this in a more earthly-minded way to help our understanding:
Scenario:
Let’s say the CEO of the company you work for is always seen walking around with his VP. Everyone in the company knows that the CEO implicitly trusts the VP. Whenever the CEO asks for something to be done, the VP does it immediately and without fail. The VP is dependable, of high integrity, and never fails to meet the CEO’s expectations. In addition to that, the two are bosom friends. After work, they spend all their time together, have the same way of thinking, and have invested incalculable time together so that they can finish each others’ sentences.
You sit in your little cubicle, typing away at your computer keyboard, unsure if the CEO even knows you exist. But you have a request to make. A new stapler? A problem with the guy in the cubicle next to you? Trouble paying your bills on the income you make? Dissatisfaction with how your skills are being used? Whatever it is, you know that if you could just talk to the CEO, he could straighten it out…if he’s willing.
You and the VP are on a first-name basis, so you feel comfortable asking him, but he tells you that these things need to go through the CEO for approval. He says you can go ahead and ask directly, and tell the CEO that the VP sent you. You can ask on the VP’s reputation.
Would it influence how you asked? What you asked? The purpose for your asking?
It would for me. I would want to be certain that what I asked was a fair representation of what the VP, himself, would want. By dropping his name, I’m putting his reputation on the line before the CEO. While also getting the CEO’s favor because of his relationship with the VP, and, therefore, me.
Likewise, when we use the name of Jesus when we ask the Father, we need to take care that our asking is in alignment with his love for God and love for others. This brings Jesus glory. And if we are bringing Jesus glory, who always lives to bring glory to the Father (John 14:12-14), then we are also seeking to glorify the one whom we are asking. Those are the prayers the Father desires to grant.
“In Jesus’s name” is a BIG DEAL.
But how do we know if what we are asking really brings honor to Jesus and to the Father? Join us here next week for some answers to that question!
Share your story
Are you struggling to ask the Father in some area of your life? What do you think holds you back? Has anything in today’s post prompted you to think differently about your own asking? Tell us in the comments and let’s get a meaningful discussion going!
Be First to Comment