Tag: Seek

Sermon Seeds: Persistence in Prayer

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When I was in high school and experiencing all the typical teenage angst of relationship break-ups, peer pressure, and raging hormones, I had one encounter that forever shaped the way I move toward the future.

I felt a closeness to the the mother of one my friends…her whole family actually. This woman of faith died from breast cancer the fall of my senior year in high school—but not before imparting to me the words that became my mantra for life.

One evening, when my angst and stress was overwhelming, I went to her home. I poured out my heart, and at some point spewed my need to just give up.

She got right in my face, and quietly, but firmly told me to never, ever give up.

Here was this woman, my spiritual mentor at the time, dying from the ravages of cancer, on oxygen, barely able to move off the couch, telling me to never give up. Nothing in life comes easy, but it’s always, always, worth fighting for.

I can’t tell you how many times those words have come back to me, sustained me, pushed me, enabled me.

I apply them to work, to child-rearing, to writing, to facing the seemingly impossible.

And I apply them to prayer and my relationship with God.

The words of Jesus about prayer, “ask…seek…knock” are actually: keep on asking, keep on seeking…keep on knocking.”

Are you in a situation that seems overwhelming? Do you need a miracle? Never give up in prayer. God’s answer, his way, his truth, are worth fighting for.

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Knock Three Times

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8 NIV)

Not this WP knock3 Penny

Or this WP knock 3x

But this  WP ASK

Prayer, connection with God and the things He has for me, involves these three things. Asking. You’ve probably heard that there are no “dumb” questions. At our house we say the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

In a lecture on prayer, one of my mentors said, “People so often complain about “unanswered prayer” but fail to recognize the “unprayed answers.” The latter seems to be the exception. God always answers our prayers: sometimes yes, sometimes no, and sometimes not yet. The answers we get may not always come as we have asked or expected, but when we ask, he answers.

Seeking. There are times when finding the answer requires us to become involved in the process. Sometimes we have to put feet to our prayers to meet up with the answer. If we will move, we might find we are closer to the answer.

Knocking. When we are knocking on the door, typically we looking to connect with whoever is on the other side. God created us for relationship. We really do need each other. There is a reason the writer of Hebrews tells us not to give up meeting together and reminds us we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. God’s answers to our needs often come through the hands of others.

So when we find ourselves struggling to find God’s answer to our questions or his provision for our need, let’s employ the A.S.K. method and watch for how he will respond.

PRAYER: God, in our quiet moments today hear the cries of our hearts, as we bring before you our own needs and intercede for others. Open our eyes to many ways you answer and our need to keep asking, seeking, and knocking. Amen.

First Thing First

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6:33)

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There’s a line from a child’s poem that rumbles through my brain when I read this part of the Sermon on the Mount: :…why the people rush and worry so..” Jesus was aware of the people’s preoccupation with what they would eat and what they would wear and wear they would lay their head at night.

His solution: seek 1st things 1st.

Determining our priorities pose problems for us. The struggle often comes from our inability to distinguish between what is urgent and what is important.

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What are we chasing after and why?

Jesus is pretty clear. Seek first God’s Kingdom–his way of doing things. This thought was already given prominence in his answer to the disciples request for his teaching on prayer: pray this way, “Your Kingdom come.” Which in a nutshell means: I am willing Lord to live by your principles.

And your righteousness. Big theological word. What does it mean? To be in right relationship with God.

And if we do these things? Then all these things…the stuff the world chases after…worries about…labels as urgent and important….will be given to us.

A Psalm that most of us know much of by heart was also familiar to those who listened to Jesus that day. The Lord is my Shepherd. I have everything I need.

Those two lines are what Jesus was…is referring to. By acknowledging his Lordship, we declare whose Kingdom we are a part of. Identifying him as our Shepherd clearly defines our proper relationship. And the outcome: we won’t be rushing or worrying after things…for we will have everything we need.

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PRAYER: Dearest Shepherd, you know what we need before we ask for it. You love us enough to provide. Teach us what it means to live citizens of your Kingdom, in right relationship with you. And thank you.