Ask, seek, knock

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

This is what Christ told his disciples with regard to how our attitude should be in our relation with God especially when we are in need of something. It highlights the importance of faith and perseverance when we ask God for help. (cfr. Mt 7,7-12)

“Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you,” he said. And he assured us that he who asks would receive, he who seeks would find, and he who knocks would have the door opened for him.

Reiterating that assurance he said: “What man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent? If you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?”

These are words that definitely showcase God’s loving nature, which should encourage us to approach him with confidence and trust. Our prayers of petition should therefore be founded on God’s goodness and love. Yes, we need to persevere in prayer since no matter how bad things look, God always will love us and will take care of us.

We should therefore treat God as a father to whom we can confide anything at all, unafraid to talk even about some dark, bad things that may be lingering in our mind and heart. To be sure, God is not scandalized by anything. He is all there for us, to help us, to enlighten us, to encourage and inspire us. And if we need something special, definitely we should not hesitate to go to God.

But definitely, for us to engage God with meaningful, substantial and lasting conversation, especially when we are asking him for something special, we definitely need to prepare our prayer. And in this regard, there can be two stages of preparation — the remote and the proximate.

The remote preparation can be in the form of always referring to God whatever happens to us during the day, taking note of our thoughts, desires, interests, how we have done our work, how we have fulfilled our duties, etc. It is always helpful to put into writing those passing insights and observations we have in the course of the day.

Of course, it also helps to make a list of topics and intentions to which we refer ourselves often during the day, so that we can have some direction in our spiritual considerations during the day. It also helps to develop a set of devotions if only to train our mind and heart to be focused on the spiritual and supernatural realities of our life.

Everything should be offered or at least referred to God. That way, we would always be in his presence which is so important and necessary for us, because without him the only thing to happen to us is to lose hope and then to be tempted and to fall eventually.

The proximate preparation would consist of making many acts of faith, hope and charity, or acts of contrition and thanksgiving, if only to generate heat and passion for prayer. It’s important that our prayer be done in a lively way, or that at least, it should involve and engage our more important faculties — our mind, will, heart, our feelings and emotions.

It’s when we are hot at prayer that we can manage to have focus, direction and perseverance in our considerations.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com