I lost a hearing aid the other day. I was sitting on my bed and dropped it as I was putting it in my ear. Scrambling around—it had to be close by!—I was sitting right there when I dropped it. I panicked. “Here I am again, Lord,” I said. “You must get really tired of my always coming to You and asking for something else.” (When you get my age, you spend a considerable amount of time looking for things you’ve mislaid!)
But something good happened while I searched. God reminded me that He had plainly and often told His children to ask Him for what we need. I was not fretting God with requests He was weary of hearing On the contrary, it pleases Him when we come to Him with our needs. In Philippians 4:19, the Apostle Paul said,
And my God shall supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Can you hear that? “All your needs.” How? From “His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
God has limitless resources. He has everything we need, everything.
God clarified His intentions in Isaiah 45:19 (nlt) when He said, “I publicly proclaim bold promises. I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner. I would not have told the people of Israel to seek Me if I could not be found. I, the LORD, speak only what is true and declare only what is right.”
So, when God tells us to ask for what we need, He has every intention of answering our prayers. Jesus said in Matthew 7:7,8 (nkjv):
“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.”
Might we ask for something in ignorance that might actually hurt us? Yes, and that’s why the Lord Jesus said, in the very next verses (Luke 7:9-11 nkjv): “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
Suppose I’m asking for something not in the will of God, something that would actually hurt me though I don’t realize it. If I keep asking, God will reshape my request, change it and give me exactly what I really need, what I really want!
Oh, yes, about that lost hearing aid? After a full day of anxious searching and praying, I found it nestled between a bed rail and the mattress. How it got there, I can’t explain. How I found it there, I can’t explain, either, except that I learned that when God tells us to ask Him for what we need, He intends to answer our requests. It pleased Him for me to ask, and it pleased Him to give me what I asked for.