Ask And You Will Receive

My wife is the prayer coordinator for our church. She prepares a weekly document of prayer requests from the congregation, and on Saturday evening, e-mails it to those who have asked to be included in the prayer chain. On Sunday morning before church she photocopies the document for those who do not have a computer. Urgent requests during the week are sent by e-mail and telephone.

Last Sunday, she and Brenda, who helps her with the photocopying, discovered that the church’s copier was jammed. They searched the machine to find the source but to no avail. Finally, they put their hands on the machine and Dorothy began a prayer for help, “This machine, dear Lord . . . ” That’s as far as she got.

At that point, she recognized that one finger was touching a small button on the copier that neither of them had noticed. She pushed it. A slide opened, and there was the source of the trouble. God knew about the problem. He was waiting for her to ask Him for help.

In Matthew 7, 7 we read Jesus’ words: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find.” How often we forget to do that. We push and pull, rip and tear, trying to do things on our own. That’s not what Jesus said we should do when things go wrong. He wants us to calmly ask for help.

By Jim Newell, Glen Acres Baptist Church, Waterloo