Keep Asking (Friday Devotional)

 

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

- Matthew 7:7

The other night, my family was enjoying dinner with friends and somebody asked my son Andrew, already a world traveler at age 6, where he wants to go next. After thinking for a second, he gave his answer: Antarctica. Chuckling, we explained to him that, because of the harsh conditions, we were pretty sure he was too young to go to Antarctica right now. So his response was perfectly natural: how old do you have to be to go there?

In that moment, I had three choices. One, I could make something up. He wouldn’t know better, whether I said 12 or 20 or 35—any number I pulled out of thin air would be believed. Two, I could try to change the subject; I could avoid betraying my ignorance by redirecting the conversation and leaving his question twisting in the wind. Or three, I could tell the truth: I could say I didn’t know, and then do my best to find out.

The older I get, the more I am confronted by two things: how little I know and how resistant I am to admit it. Something about adulthood and its accompanying responsibilities gives you the impression that you need to have all the answers all the time. So when you don’t know an answer, there’s a constant temptation to invent or distract, to immediately dispel any notion that you’re a fallible human being like everybody else.

Jesus told his disciples—and therefore tells us—that when we have a need, we should simply ask our heavenly Father for it, that we should have the humility and the self-awareness to turn to God for the answers we don’t have. Ask, he said, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Maybe too simple? That’s because this is one of those times English translations let us down a bit—in the Greek, the verb tense used here is the present imperative active, a command expected to be followed not once, but as an ongoing process. So what Jesus was saying was that we should ask and keep asking, seek and keep seeking, knock and keep knocking. Discernment doesn’t come as an instantaneous flash, but a slow dawning, the result of repeated, humble inquiry.

In a world where we feel so pressured to have it all together, to know all the answers, Jesus calls us to instead be humble seekers, going to God with our questions and our cares and then trusting him to show us the way. He won’t often do so immediately—after all, what kind of faith would that require? —but if we keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking, then in humility we’ll find something far more powerful than feigned certainty.

So back to the Antarctica question. When Andrew asked his question, I told the truth. I didn’t know, and I said so. And then I pulled out my iPhone, consulted Google, and read in a few places that most Antarctic expeditions won’t bring anyone younger than eight years old. Is that the right answer, the 100% correct, black-and-white, unquestioned truth? Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll keep asking.