“I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Gen32.26 ESV
Jesus told us to ask, seek, knock, and to persistently do so until we have been answered. I think the reason why He wants us to do this has nothing to do with God reluctance to bless us but because it is in the very act of asking that we receive. What I mean is that the asking itself expresses the proper relationship of creature to creator and of sons and daughters to their Father and that in itself is receiving something good. Asking also exercises spiritual muscles, which will atrophy without use and so God makes us ask if for no other reason than to strengthen those means of interacting and knowing Him.
A parent will put an item of interest just outside the reach of an infant to entice it to crawl. God does no less in our spiritual development. Of course the “items of interest” used to entice us will mature as we crawl, then walk, then run. Our asking may begin with daily bread, and end with raising the dead so to speak. But I have my suspicions that maturity will completely reshape our “items of interest” as we come to understand what asking and receiving is all about. 4/5/2008 ts
Just me trying to be honest with God.
