Asking – Would You Like Small, Medium or Large?

What if asking was your only way to get what you want or need? That would mean you are a child! Children can’t provide for themselves. They must ask for everything. And kids don’t usually ask for a small number of things. So let me take you back to those days. And let’s see if we can recover something we have lost.

Asking – The Reminders

Jesus told us to ask, seek and knock (see Matthew 7:1-12). That was in His Sermon on the Mount which was given near the beginning of HIs earthly ministry. It’s interesting to notice that on the night before Jesus was crucified, He was still instructing His disciples to ask. Notice John 14:14 – :

If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

Those two sets of instructions form a loose set of bookends to Jesus earthly ministry. That is noteworthy by itself. Furthermore, Paul was inspired to tell us we can make our requests known to God (Philippians 4:6-7).This idea of petitioning the Lord runs through the New Testament. And that takes me back to one of my initial statements.

Matthew 18:2-4 tells us we have to come to the Lord as children. We come to Him in child-like faith. But we never lose that status as His children. Once again, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gave us the Model Prayer:

Our Father Who is in heaven…

He is our Father and we are His children. Do we grow? Yes! The Apostle Peter said we are to grow up in our faith (I Peter 2:1-12). But we are never told to ‘outgrow’ the necessity of taking our petitions and requests to the Father. Now, let’s look at an example and a ministry application.

Asking – Old Testament Example

II Kings 19:19-21 is the account of Elisha’s call to ministry. God had instructed Elijah to anoint Elisha as Israel’s next prophet. We have no indication that Elisha knew this was coming or that he even wanted the job. So we don’t see Elisha asking for anything concerning God’s call. He did ask for the opportunity to say goodbye to his family.

Elisha served Elijah and learned from him in apparent obscurity. We don’t see Elisha again until II Kings 2. Elijah asked Elisha what could be done for him. We see Elisha’s reply in II Kings 2:9 –

Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.

When Elisha had the opportunity to ask, his request was not small. It was not a medium sized request. He asked for the giant, super-sized thing. Elisha had seen many of the things God had accomplished through Elijah. And Elisha’s request was for the Lord to do even more through him. That is a God-sized request! And God honored it!

Asking – New Testament Idea

One of my oft-quoted passages of Scripture is found in Ephesians 3. The chapter ends with these words:

Now to Him Who is able to to do exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or imagine, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 

Here, the idea of asking is implied. We can think of it this way. SINCE God can do more than we can possibly imagine, ASK FOR THE BIG THINGS! That is what Elisha did. That is what we should do. But do we do it?

So often, we spend our time asking our Father for the little things – the things we need. Back to the Sermon on the Mount – He knows what we have need of before we ask. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask. We should! But the focus of our time, attention and energies in praying ought to be for those unimaginalby huge things that bring glory to our Father. Why?

When we ask for the little things we don’t always know if God answered our prayers or not. However, if we ask for the things at the end of our imaginations and He grants them (Elisha), then there is absolutely no doubt that God Almighty has heard from Heaven and answered the requests of His children. And He does delight in giving good gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11).

Application For Today

Our La Romana team had some in-depth discussions while they were on site. The neighborhood we work in has just over 1,000 homes. That means the population is over 5,000. The problem? There is no water service for all those people. They must buy water for drinking as well as non-purified water for bathi ng, cleaning, toilet operations, etc.

What is the solution? The best answer is to drill a well and then install a water purification system. That combination will take about $25,000.00. That is what I will call a medium sized ask. And there is a grant application in the works to address some of that funding. Please pray for that.

We also had our first venture into Colombia in July. To meet the goals of training and mobilizing 300 Colombian missionaries will take north of $75,000.00 – as a beginning point. That really is more than we can ask or imagine. There is work going on – behind the scenes – to obtain grants for some of that need. Please pray (ask)!

There are other things as well. But not for this post. I’ve met my lesser goal of informing you. My larger goal was to help as many as I can to snap-out-of-it and celebrate the fact that you are a child whose major activity is asking! Need one more convincing word?

John 15:5 sums it up. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. So let’s stay busy asking for the big things – for yourself, your loved ones, your pastor, your church family, our nation, and for this ministry! We can’t ask for too much, but we can ask too little.

Soli Deo Gloria!