January 1: Ask, Seek, Knock
♫ Music:
Wednesday, January 1
NEW YEAR’S DAY
Title: ASK, SEEK, KNOCK
Scripture: Matthew 7: 7-11
“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. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 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 what is good to those who ask Him!
Poetry :
E Tenebris
By Oscar Wilde
Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land,
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God’s throne should stand.
“He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.”
Nay, peace, I shall behold before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.
FAITH ASKING, SEEKING, KNOCKING
In what way do you want to learn to live your life fully in 2020?
Posture is important. I am not referring to merely the sit-up-straight kind of posture; but the kind of soul stature, if you will, healthy for a genuine life worth living well in God.
Consider the “Strength of Memory” mural. Standing five stories tall, it reveals rather publicly a posture of surrender, perhaps in the midst of pain, and a willingness to receive care and support. It is a picture of readiness; a readiness for change.
With Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:7-11, we are provoked to consider if our life is postured to truly seek after what is good. Are you ready for change? How is Jesus in your ‘asking’?
Jesus is serious about our asking just by virtue of giving us three imperatives in this passage: Ask, Seek, Knock (I’ll abbreviate it as ASK). They have an iterative texture to their orientation: Keep on asking, seeking, and knocking.
Our ASKing reveals our heart. Jesus actually cares about the formation of our asking. Do we? It is tempting to live as if God is inconsequential to our asking; as if we are not invited to ask with Him.
But Jesus’ words come to us full of faith and expectant longing. He knows what is truly real and good. The question is are we ready to trust that He knows what is truly real and good for us? Do we trust that He is ‘ahead of us’ in our ASKing?
Notice, though, that Jesus does not spell-out-the-specifics of what we are to ASK. He is focused on the manner in which we ask. He does not treat us as His robots, and nor is He ‘artificial intelligence’ for our ASKing.
But if Jesus does not dictate what we are to ASK, does that mean we are left all alone in our ASKing? NO! That claim has more to do with our own assumptions than it does about Him.
Jesus is not faint-hearted about our assumptions, however mistaken they may be about Him or His Father. Throughout His teaching, Jesus is constantly getting at what is foundational to our thought and action; what we take to be a ‘given’, especially if unreliable.
In our passage, Jesus is asking us to reassess our assumptions about who we think God is and how God relates to us with our ASKing. Throughout His “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus repeatedly draws attention to how we relate to our Father and His character (5:45, 48; 6:1, 4, 6, 8-15, 18, 24, 26, 30, 32).
Jesus is addressing foundational worldview beliefs. For example, if you live as if God is not your provider or is capricious in His giving, will not such beliefs foundationally shape how you ask, what you ask, or even IF you ask?
That Jesus confidently exhorts us to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking is itself based on knowledge of the reality that God is, indeed, the very one who will reliably keep on giving, who will keep on being found, and will keep on opening doors.
In what world do you live your life? Is it a world mainly of your own making? That might seem like a ‘safe’ world, seemingly under your control and desires. But is that real, reliable, and good? Or, do you live – with even your vulnerabilities – as if you are actually in your Father’s world, a truly God-bathed world (Dallas Willard)? Jesus is after the truth-conduciveness of our world-and-life view of reality.
Humanity’s default view of God is more like a ‘poverty mentality’: I alone know my needs better than anyone. No one will take care of my life better than me. Because there are limited resources, I have to fight to get my share of what is rightfully mine.
What does it look like to ASK without a poverty mentality and without our ASKing being dependent on circumstances as the necessary occasion to ASK? How might our ASKing be shaped by the life-companionship and personal presence of the superabundant Sufficient One? For Enoch walked with God . . . and then he was no more (Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5).
Jesus is inviting us into a practice of ASKing that is for the whole of life in all its undulations! He is looking for an ASKing people. His invitation is not merely to come forward with our asking when we are desperately needy, whether in a Peter drowning-in-the-water moment, or in an Oscar Wilde place of honest fear and self-awareness.
Jesus’ invitation is now: Will you come and talk to me about your life, where it is going, what it is becoming? Will you take me on as your interlocutor, indeed, Maestro of life and learning – more serious and care-filled about your thoughts, beliefs, doubts, questionings, wonderings, curiosities, and desires – than even you are?
Prayer:
My Lord, save me from small, circumstantial thinking about my life in you. With Paul, I pray: God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, grant me today a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of you. May the eyes of my heart be enlightened so that I will know what is the hope of your calling, what are the riches of the glory of your inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of your power toward me and those who believe (Eph. 1:17-19).
Amen
Joseph E. Gorra
Writer and Educator
Founder/Director of Veritas Life Center
Biola Alum
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork
Strength of Memory
Fintan Magee with ONO’U Tahiti
2019
Street mural
Papeete, Tahiti
Australian street artist Fintan Magee traveled to Papeete, Tahiti, to complete this five story high mural entitled “Strength of Memory.” The mural project was created in conjunction with ONO’U Tahiti, an arts organization that promotes public art on the island. In the painting, a young man kneels, his hands open with palms facing upwards as if in defeat or in petition. A woman offers compassionate support, holding him in her arms. The triangular pattern tattooed onto his left forearm is a common graphic motif throughout Polynesian culture. Historically Polynesian warriors were tattooed with a series of geometrical patterns that “represent protection, guidance, and strength.” With the mural’s overall atmosphere of pain paired with compassion, Magee highlights the importance of seeking support and comfort when faced with the inevitable struggles of our lives.
About the Artist:
Fintan Magee is an Australian street artist known for his murals throughout Australia and the world. Born in New South Wales, he grew up in Brisbane, Australia, gaining a reputation as a graffiti artist before obtaining a fine arts degree and relocating to Sydney. His work often deals with environmental issues. He often uses personal stories to talk about broader issues like climate change and the migrant crisis. He received national acclaim for his mural depicting Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver, in Brisbane, and he has participated in various public art festivals in Australia and internationally. His experience in the realm of illegal art is evidenced through his commitment to themes like “waste, consumption, loss, transition, but also sentimentality and nostalgia related to childhood memories.” His formal training has helped him to express these ideas in his distinctly realistic style.
About the Music:
“From Afar” from the album Waiting for the Dawn
About the Composer and Performers:
Salt Of The Sound is the award-winning musical collaboration of husband and wife duo Anita and Ben Tatlow. Their aim is to create songs that encourage spiritual reflection both in church environments and in times of personal quiet, while also exploring musical styles and expressions that bring a freshness to the Christian and ambient music scenes.
About the Poet:
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in a variety of forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and for his colorful plays. In Wilde’s poem, "E Tenebris," a note of moral awareness and even remorse predominates. The poet states: "And well I know my soul in Hell must lie/If I this night before God's throne should stand." As Philip Cohen noted in The Moral Vision of Oscar Wilde, this moral strain is paradoxically woven throughout the fabric of Wilde's work, despite his seemingly definitive statements to the contrary.
About the Devotion Writer:
Joseph E. Gorra
Writer and Educator
Founder/Director of Veritas Life Center
Biola Alum
Joe Gorra is founder and director of Veritas Life Center, a California-based 501c3 religious nonprofit aimed at advancing the Christian tradition as a knowledge and wisdom tradition for the flourishing of human life and society. His writings have appeared at ChristianityToday.com, Patheos.com, EPSOCIETY.org, and various publications, including the Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care, the Christian Research Journal, and the Journal of Markets and Morality.