Prayer. It’s seemingly one of the simplest things, and yet the most complicated. As simple as Jesus made it sound in our Gospel reading from this past weekend, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you,” sometimes life makes it seem more complicated than that.
I don’t think I’m the only one who’s ever wondered if God hasn’t heard my prayers, or wondered if God has left me “without” an answer to my prayers. But recently, I’ve begun thinking about prayer a bit differently. Thinking about our passage from Luke, though Jesus promises to provide for us, Jesus doesn’t promise to give us the very thing we ask for. In the words of Elenore Stump, “He [Jesus] says that if we ask, we will receive; but he doesn’t happen to mention what we will receive.”
Think of it this way: When you’re physically sick and go to a doctor, it’s not your job to determine what you need to be healed. That’s the doctors job. Your only “job” is to ask for help, seek the guidance and healing of another, and open yourself to receive what the doctor may be able to provide for you.
Again, using the words of Stump, “In the same way, the Lord’s prayer requires us to trust God enough to tell God what we want – over and over and over. Our job is to ask continually. God’s job is to figure out what to give us that will really fill us and heal us.”
This week, dear Shepherds, allow yourself to come to your Father in prayer. Seek to unite yourself with Christ, and be honest with God about where you’re at. And in time, you just might receive that which Jesus promises us in Luke 11: the gift of the Holy Spirit, filling us with grace, with peace, and with life.