“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)
“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you. (Mark 11:24)
So Jesus called a child to come and stand in front of them, and said, “I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. The greatest in the Kingdom of hea
ven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child. (Matthew 18:2-4)
Jesus spoke a great deal about prayer. Sometimes I think we can hear or read scripture and it just seems to be “something in the Bible,” and not really register with us. Life really gets exciting when we “receive” what we read in scripture. By this I mean we really receive what is said as something meant for our lives today, not just something that Jesus said a couple of thousand years ago. I find it interesting that Jesus doesn’t hold up scholasticism, intellectualism or bookishness as prerequisites for entering the Kingdom of Heaven, but instead lifts up childlikeness in our faith as a chief requirement. It seems the chief area in which Jesus wants to see childlikeness is in our faith when we pray. D. L. Moody related an incident which shows us just what Jesus means when He calls us to be childlike in our faith and prayers.
A little girl, whose father and mother had died, was taken in by another family. The first night she spent in her new home she asked if she could pray as she used to do. They said “Oh yes.”
So she knelt down, and prayed as her mother had taught her; and when that was ended, she added a little prayer of her own: “Oh God, make these people as kind to me as father and mother were.”
Then she paused and looked up, as if expecting the answer, and added: “Of course He will.” How sweetly simple was that little girl’s faith. She prayed expecting God to “do,” and, of course, He did. She got her request.
May we all pray expecting our loving Heavenly Father to “do,” as well.
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