Asking

For most people the process of making a request of another person is awkward and embarrassing. We realize that “asking” puts us in a position of dependence and need. Asking subjects us to the other person’s whims, desires, authority, mercy, information, etc., and is a most humbling activity since we are obviously lacking the “something” that we are asking for.

We try to alleviate some of that uneasiness with over-worked platitudes like, “There are no dumb questions,” or “Everybody needs something.” While there is truth in those statements, it still doesn’t change the nature of asking; it assumes the request is made “by” the lesser “of” the greater –  and that is what unsettles us! So we try to reverse the order and turn a simple request into a demand as we try to force or coerce the response we want.

I remember as a young person (knowing in advance what my parents would probably say) I would alter my asking to “go somewhere” by indicating emphatically that “everyone else would be there,” and it would be embarrassing if I wasn’t there. Instead of asking I tried to turn the tables on my parents and manipulate their response so it would be what I desired.

Even as followers of Jesus and working to learn to live like He did, we many times revert back to that default approach to asking when it comes to prayer. We incorrectly consider that approach to be the Christian parallel of “asking”! While asking truly is part of any relationship (especially the one we have with God), when it is corrupted by the selfish pride of manipulation asking becomes an empty process I and even at times destructive – as we pursue our own will rather than submitting to the will of another. Prayer reduced to only the process of “asking” misses its most potent aspect, which is authentic, spiritual communication, and is easily misguided into a “listing” of what we want God to do for us.

Prayer ought to be real conversation with the One True God that energizes the life-changing work of the Holy Spirit in the deep and personal regions of our heart. Prayer change US!

How exciting to be His people,
Pastor David Vanderpool