all about asking

Every night it's the same thing from my youngest two...
"Will your read? Will you lay down with me? Are you coming up? Will you come back and check on me later? Will you sing? Can I stay up and read after you leave?"
Every night, same questions regardless of my response the night before.
Every night. Religiously. Undeterred.  Persistently. Confidently.

Children don't have any trouble asking for anything. I just heard a statistic about the number of times a toddler will hear the word, "no" in a day...I can't remember the exact number, but it was a lot!  It doesn't seem to deter them either.

Why do adults, well, why do I have so much trouble asking for what I want?

hmmmmmm.....

I feel I already have so much.  I feel it makes me appear ungrateful.  I feel that by asking for some thing I am minimizing my asking for Him.  I don't want a vending machine God and I certainly don't want to appear to Him or to myself that I am in fact looking for a vending machine God. 

But, we either believe and follow or we don't.  We don't get to pick and choose which commands to believe and which we should follow.

Come to me.
Ask and it will be given to you.
Anything you ask in my name.
What is it that you want?

Ask, even though He already knows what we need and what we want- He still wants us to ask.  Why?

~positioning~ asking for something keeps us in the right perspective of our need and His provision, power and authority
~enjoyment~ He desires to give us good things and wants to be needed; our asking brings Him joy
~our benefit~ asking is good for us. Everything God tells us to do is for our own good, even when we can't understand why. 

When the blind man comes to Jesus, Jesus asks the man, "What do you want me to do for you?" (matt 20:32) I am really close to certain that Jesus already knows what the man wants. He wants to see.  The audience knows what the man wants.  So why does Jesus ask him?
 I think He wants the man to ask, to be specific, to have faith, to recognize His power to heal and to show that we have the right to ask.

I have always struggled with asking.  I am certain it is my pride and my illusion that I shouldn't need to ask, but should be able to do for myself.  THIS is why I must ask.  My asking is a demonstration of my humility and an acknowledgment of my complete lack. 

There are things I want.  I will ask and I will believe that I will receive them.  If I do not, it is only because there is a better thing, not because I shouldn't have asked.

For today, what do you want?  Pray God's word and read His promises.  The "if-then" statements throughout scripture that encourage us to ask and believe in faith, not in hope, but in faith that we will receive.  Ask.