And he gives us this advice about prayer in our lives. "Ask and it will be given to you. Search and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
How did he know that? He knew because his tradition from scripture and synagogue told him that God will pour out blessings on the one who asks and seeks and knocks (Dt. 4:29; Is. 55:6, 65:1; Jer. 29:13-14; Pr. 8:17).
And how did he know that? He knew from a lifetime of praying to a God who is honorable, accessible, dependable, and merciful.
After staring, staring at the telephone on the table, dreading calling home to tell the news of his pending divorce, Burt Reynolds says he finally picked up the phone, dialed his parents' number with shaking hands, and, thank God, got his mother on the phone. "Mom, Judy and I are getting a divorce. No, it's final. Mom, tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I've failed again, and that I'm sorry." "Then," he says, "I heard this other voice on the phone. ‘Why don't you come on home, son,' my father said, ‘and let me tell you about all the times I've failed in my life?'"
Suppose you don't have a door cam. Or if you have one, you forget to turn it on and when the doorbell rang, without thinking, you went to the door and opened it. And suppose God was standing on your porch. You chew on your lower lip and ask nervously, "How can I help you?"
God quirks an eyebrow and says, "It's the other way around, or have you so soon forgotten what you said to me last night? I was listening. I certainly wasn't sleeping. And I distinctly remember," says God, "that at approximately 12:01 this morning, as you lay in your bed with anxious thoughts rattling around in your mind, you called out to me."
God continues, "I clearly remember what you said next. You said, ‘Lord, You are calling me to be a friend at midnight to others. Come to me now, be my friend at midnight. I need some bread.'
"Why do you look so surprised to see me? Did you think I wouldn't come to the door? Well, here I am, as promised. Are you going to let me in?"
Alyce M. McKenzie is Professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, TX. Visit Alyce McKenzie's site at Patheos.
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