The One Who Knows

Circle of God the Father, Pierre Mignard, NGO Image, National Gallery of Art, Public Domain

“Ask, and you will be given what you ask for. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives. Anyone who seeks, finds. If only you will knock, the door will open. If a child asks his father for a loaf of bread, will he be given a stone instead? If he asks for fish, will he be given a poisonous snake? Of course not! And if you hard-hearted, sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won’t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them?” (Matthew 7:7-11, TLB)

Generally we as human beings think we know quite a bit. We sense we are especially knowledgeable when we in the adolescent phase of our life. Those who have experience and wisdom are often marginalized and disregarded during this time in our lives. Later we often times realize our parents, our mentors and teachers were much wiser than we gave them credit for. We might mostly recognize that people who value quite highly their own knowledge and are haughty, proud and obnoxious to be around but yet we might at the same time,  we think we know quite a bit.

This overvaluation in functioning shows up in our defensiveness when colleagues, friends and family try to give us insights or guidance to us in those relationship or work situations. It shows up in our faith through our prayers which at times focus more on telling God what to do than asking Him to have His way with us. If truth be told, we as human beings might know quite a bit about many things but quite a little about a lot of things. The human race has progressed in knowledge in immeasurable amounts yet there is much we do not know. Of course there are many individuals who through their lifetime of study have vast amounts of knowledge about certain subjects. Other people may have a lifetime of living or working experience in more than one area and thus their knowledge about certain things is considerable. Yet if we are honest, there are an infinite amounts of things, we as human beings will never know.

In our relationship with our Creator and God, we know so little compared with the all-knowing omniscience of our Heavenly Father, but yet He welcomes our prayers. He welcomes our prayers from a truly humble heart even though He knows immeasurably more about our needs than we do, in our requesting His help and provision. There are moments in our lives when our greatest weakness is not in our need but in our failure to acknowledge our need. May we live to seek our Heavenly Father to learn from Him and may we be ever thankful for His generous giving of truly good things.

Suggested Reading … Matthew 7