Quit praying like God is a dead-beat dad.- Matthew 7:9-11

Original photo by Flickr user bterrycompton

Ask any kid in the U.S. over the age of 5 what they want for Christmas this year or for their birthday and I guarantee that 95% of the answers will begin with the letter "i"- as in i-pad, i-phone, etc. I may be exaggerating the age a little...it very well might be 4! By the way, did you know that 78% of all statistics are made up on the spot :)

I suppose with the traffic to Opry Mills backed up for a mile and half 23.5 hours of the day from last week till Christmas, it is appropriate that we come now to this verse about giving gifts. What's on your kids' list? was I right? Did it involved the letter "i"? If it didn't, I would be willing to wager that it at least involved some electronic gadget...even if they already have one!

I think it's possible that our extreme affluence (even those of us who don't consider ourselves to be rich are actually filthy rich compared to the rest of the world and compared to previous generations) has tainted our understanding of Jesus' command to ask, seek, and knock and His comparison to a Father that gives good gifts to his child.

Last week we committed to asking, seeking, and knocking trusting that God would answer, open, and be found based on Jesus' promise. But we addressed that it is difficult to believe those promises in light of what seem to us to be unanswered prayers. The problem is quite so much in figuring out a theology that is suitable to explain it in a way that makes sense. The problem is figuring out how that theology fits when I am the one who has lost a loved one. When it's a personal unanswered prayer, it becomes much more real.

In our passage for this week, Jesus compares God' willingness to give us good things to the dads that we see every day.

I have to tell you...I feel like I'm a pretty strong dad. I don't give in all of the time to my daughters when they are whining or are begging for something. Why? Because some of the stuff that they ask for, I know they really don't need and often I know that it will actually hurt them! But when they really ask in a sweet way and give me that look...let me tell you, I've caved a time or two! (Thankfully, they haven't quite figured out how to manipulate me completely, but I'm sure my time is limited!)

But what if they asked for something that I know they actually do need? I'm here to tell you, if my daughters were really hungry and in need of food, I'm pretty sure I would do just about whatever it took to provide it for them when they asked. I'm just thankful that God has provided for us so well, that I have not been put in a situation that I felt like I needed to steal. I'm not saying it's right...I'm just saying, if they were really in need, and I couldn't figure out any other way to put food in their bellies...I'm not sure what I would do. Please don't blow up the comments about the rightness or wrongness of stealing...I know its wrong. That's not the point. The point that Jesus points to is the desire of earthly fathers, who are very, very imperfect- in fact Jesus says "evil"!- to provide for and take care of their children.

Take the most doting, spoiling his little princess, wrapped around little fingers dad in the world. His emotional connection and love for his child is nothing compared to the emotional connection and love that God feels toward His children.

I tell my daughters every day how much I love them. I try to tell them every day that I don't love them nearly as much as their Daddy in heaven. I want them to trust Him more than they trust me. I want them to petition Him even more than they petition me. I get frustrated with their requests sometimes because of their 3-yr old selfishness and whinyness. But God the Father begs us to bring all of our complaints and worries and fears and needs to Him.

What a beautiful picture.

Unfortunately, there are some who did not, or do not, have a good relationship with their dad. I assume this verse must be hard for them because they have not experienced a dad who desired what was best for them. All I can say to them is this...the promise of the Heavenly Father...Abba..."Daddy" is for you and maybe in an even deeper way. All through scripture God's love for the orphaned and fatherless is shouted from the law and the prophets.

May we all work to focus and to help our children to focus more on the gifts of answered prayer and the providences of God every day that we take for granted. How many meals did you eat today? Did you drive to work? Do you have a job? Did you pick which clothes to wear today? Did you forget how cold it was outside until you opened the door of your centrally heated house? Boy do we have a lot that we haven't even thought to ask for and yet it's been given us!

When we struggle with why some prayers are not answered the way we want, may we take comfort and gain strength from the infinite numbers of prayers that He has already answered...before we even asked for them. May we quit being ashamed to pronounce our faith in answered prayers because some of them have not been answered the way we hoped. May we quit praying hesitantly and timidly as if Abba were a dead-beat Dad that we had to beg for the things we need. And may our thanks for the countless blessings He's already given us turn into strengthened faith for future prayers.

I've asked. I've seeked. I've knocked. Why have I still not recieved the open door I've been seeking for?- Matthew 7:7-8

For everyone who asks, receives; the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  - Mt. 7:8

One quick question...

If all I have to do is ask then how come I haven't gotten everything I've ever asked for?

Do you struggle with that as much as I do? I have often come to the "prayer promises" passages in the Bible and either rushed through them so I didn't have to deal with them, or else I've just settled to not fully understand them.

I remember very plainly standing in a hospital room of a young man who had either just died or was dying. I am actually fairly confident that he was already dead, but the doctors, for some reason, had not pronounced him dead yet. With his wife wailing in the room, I began praying...earnestly. I reminded God that he had raised people from the dead before. In fact, He had raised people who were much more dead than this man if he was in fact dead. (Lazarus was already in the tomb long enough to start smelling when Jesus told him to come out!) I knew then, and I still do, that God has more than enough power to raise someone who has already been pronounced dead. With that knowledge, I pleaded with God to put life back into this young man who still had not been pronounced dead.

I reasoned with God. I pointed out the praise that He would get when the doctors had to pronounce a miracle instead of a time of death. I begged for the wife of the man that I didn't know how she would make it if he died. How as it fair to let him die when he had raised others!?

I kept praying after even the wife had even given up hope that there was a real reason why the doctors had not pronounced him dead yet. And I left the hospital- and his funeral a few days later- frustrated that this verse about the surety of asking, seeking, and knocking is so difficult to understand in practice.

I also remember the feeling when I walked out to the Vanderbilt parking garage with my brother the night I thought my daughters were going to be born at 27 weeks. They wound up coming at 29.5 weeks and are doing great now! But that night, we got the visit from the doctor who was in charge of telling us all of the statistics of mortality and morbidity for babies that are born that early. Jon David walked me to the car and I shared what had been screaming silently in my mind for hours. "I prayed several weeks ago that if they weren't going to be faithful to God and Christ as adults, that God would take them before they got to that point and were still innocent."

Timidly, I still pray that prayer. I would rather lose my daughters who I love with all my heart for the next several decades and have them for all of eternity than have them till I die and lose them for eternity. That is still my prayer...but that night, anyway, I was scared to death that God had answered my prayer...and I wanted Him to take it back.

Why do we see such strong promises in the scriptures and from the mouth of Jesus and yet know that sometimes prayers are answered with "no?" Jesus, himself, was answered "no" in the Garden of Gethsemane when he begged the Father to take his cup from him. How do we reconcile that?

I have to say humbly that I still have no idea. I know intellectually the arguments about Jesus praying, "nevertheless not my will by yours be done." Those are good and true arguments. But how are we supposed to pray at all believing these commands of ask, seek, and knock when we can't see the specific and detailed plans and will of God from his eternal perspective instead of our temporary one?

Here is what I choose to believe.

Jesus was telling the truth. God makes big promises about our prayers and petitions. Jesus- and others (think Elijah in James 5:17-17)- put that truth into practice and saw incredible results in their prayers. And still at times they were told "no." I wonder if they struggled with these questions like we do. But they chose to believe. And while at times they may have been frustrated and confused about not seeing what God sees when the "no's" came, they chose to keep praying, seeking, and knocking. And their prayers closed and opened the heavens, raised the dead, and healed the sick.

I wonder if I see more "no's" than "yes's" simply because I have not chosen to translate my belief into actions and adventurous faith-led and faith-filled risk-taking like they did. I wonder.

I don't know that I will ever come to a good answer. I have some theories that I am comfortable with. But I don't think they would do you any good, because they didn't do me any good until I came to them myself. But I will choose to believe...and I will pray the prayer of a father who believed as much as he could.

I will choose to ask, seek, and knock expecting the results Jesus promised and when God questions my lack of faith I will reply like that father, "I do believe! Help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)