March 19, 2017 Matthew 7.7 - 14

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find;
knock, and the door will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds,
and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law of the prophets. “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

***
There are times it seems God has gone behind the cloud, times of waiting in the cool, just hoping for that day when the sun will shine on us, in the green grass of the pasture, as if it were our wedding day. We put our hopes and dreams into our prayers and pray whole heartedly - God bring me a husband, God let me have a baby, God what about a friend with whom to travel and talk, God will you fix my relationship with my family, God mend my relationship with my spouse, God bring my beloved back from death, God help me get this job, God pay off my credit card, God heal my arthritis, my back pain, my COPD. God let me run around again like a child without a care in the world. Bring me your warmth, Holy One behind the cloud.

But we don’t realize, it isn’t God’s warmth for which we are asking when we ask those things. We are asking for fixes that won’t guarantee our flourishing.
A new husband, or spouse, or the current one with whom things are hard, won’t fulfill our desire for love, until we know we are loved and learn to ourselves,
- a new, or current spouse, may only perpetuate our brokenness if we haven’t first healed our own wounds,
a baby may make us feel more alone with increased responsibility and a lack of freedom,
we may exhaust new friends, running through them one by one, because we are asking them to fill an empty spot we do not know is there,
our family may spend more time together, but it may never be a deep source of relationship, until we are able to accept others and the past as they are, and seek ways and boundaries for us to be us and them to be them in the present,
wishing for our deceased beloved to return keeps us away from looking for a different future
our new job may not produce fulfillment,
financial stability might be merely that and bring a new set of worries,
our healing of chronic pains may allow us to be equally distracted by other lesser ailments.
Sometimes we are asking for fixes that won’t guarantee our flourishing. Just because we ask, doesn’t mean its what we should receive, or that its the right time to receive it. But God isn’t holding back. God is seeking something beyond our imagining, something so unfathomable that it cannot come from human asking, seeking, knocking.

The scripture says, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?”… If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! It doesn’t say the child is given bread, and we too may be asking for bread, it may seem like the easy answer, its right in front us, the easy fix, but God’s is seeking something far deeper. God seeks that we might not hunger but be full. God is answering us with good things, the likes of which are beyond our asking.

God is seeking that before a spouse, we may know that we are never alone, that God is with us always.
That before a baby we know that God is our strength, and that strength is our freedom.
That before healing our marriage, our marriage with God becomes so strong we learn to love ourselves,
That before kinship with our family, we may learn to be embraced by the entire family of God, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, all of us adopted by the Great Parent.
That because we are full of God, we learn to be a friend who gives rather than takes.
That we believe and hope in a future without our deceased beloved,
because we know the promises of God.
That before a new job we learn contentment in simplicity.
That before a perfect credit score, we lavish in the riches of God’s bounty.
That before healing our ailments, that we may couple the power of hope with the assurance of God’s presence with us in our pain.
That instead of bread, we knew God’s answer of good things.
What if these good things were what we had?
What if these were our answered prayers?
What if these were who we could be in God?
What if in the middle of our darkest hour we felt God’s blazing presence such that nothing, nothing could diminish God’s light, that nothing, nothing could give us a chill, that all was God burning like the sun on our face, Radiant Beaming Fire, glowing so strong.

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find;
knock, and the door will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds,
and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Who would we be with the Father’s assurance? We would be the people of God. We would know such peace, we would live in joy, we would speak hope, we would bow in humility, we would cry in thanksgiving, we would rest in comfort, we would attest to healing, we would have a clarity for kindness and grace in servant hood, we would walk in the Spirit, in the light of the Lord, and see Our Father’s radiant face without ceasing.