The Layman Foundations of the Faith
Give us
Robert P. Mills, Posted Monday, Apr 8, 2002
Suggested Scripture Readings: Matthew 6:11; 7:7-11 James 4:1-3; Psalm 23 |
On an old television series, Bob Newhart played a psychologist. One of his clients was a door-to-door salesman whose consistent lack of success left him very depressed. One day Newhart accompanied his client, hoping to discover the root of his problem. It didn’t take long. The salesman went up to the first apartment door and just stood there. After a few moments Newhart said, “Well, aren’t you going to knock?”
“Oh no!” the unsuccessful, unhappy salesman replied with shock, “I never knock. I might bother somebody.”
“I never knock” is a funny line coming from a salesman on a sitcom. It is a sad commentary if it describes the prayer life of a Christian.
‘Our Father … give us’
“Lord, teach us to pray,” the disciples asked Jesus. In response, Jesus taught them to address God as Abba, Father, and to begin their prayers by directing their attention toward God’s person and work. Having thus prioritized his disciples’ pattern for prayer, Jesus then teaches them to ask that God supply their most basic needs: bread, forgiveness and protection.
The pattern is important. As N.T. Wright observes, “If we don’t spend time adoring our Father in heaven, seeking the honor of his name, and praying for his kingdom, all our own desires and hopes will simply present themselves to us in a muddled, jumbled fashion, coming bubbling up to the surface in what C. S. Lewis, contemptuous of the later writings of James Joyce, called a ‘steam of consciousness.’”
In our next two studies, we will explore what it means to ask God to provide “our daily bread.” First, however, we must address the questions of why and how it is possible, desirable and even necessary for us to ask God for anything at all.
Asking God
The Prayer of Jabez, by Bruce Wilkinson, has encouraged many Christians to pray more frequently and fervently. Jabez’s simple prayer begins “O that you would bless me indeed …”
Wilkinson’s brief book captures the essence of Jabez’s prayer. It thereby highlights a central theme of the last three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: God wants to bless his people, and he wants us to ask him for his blessings.
Most of us have had times in our lives when things were going rather well, when we didn’t feel the need to ask anything from anyone – including God. But inevitably there come times when all does not go well. God can use these seasons of life to restore to us the humility we ought always to cultivate, a sense that tends to disappear in moments of triumph (cf. Psalm 119:67-71).
These times of need also remind us that God is always ready to listen to requests from his children. As Eugene Peterson writes, “Christian faith is not neurotic dependency but childlike trust. … We do not cling to God desperately out of fear and the panic of insecurity; we come to him freely in faith and love.”
Why do we ask God for what we need? Because Jesus taught us to do so. How do we ask? By coming to God freely in faith and love, humbly and in awareness of our need.
Ask, seek, knock
Shortly after Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer he added:
“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; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 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 gifts to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:7-11).
William Hendrickson notes that such asking “implies humility and a consciousness of need. The verb is used with respect to a petition which is addressed by an inferior to a superior. Asking presupposes belief in a personal God with whom one can have fellowship. When one asks, he expects an answer.”
God does not want us to stand quietly in the hallway of heaven, never knocking on the door, never really certain if anyone is there to answer. Instead, he wants us to come to him as trusting children come to a loving father. He waits patiently to hear us pray “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Additional Resources |