by Rose Murdock

Let’s say you, as a parent, are sitting at the kitchen table reading.  Your spouse is across the table from you and your eleven-year-old son walks in the room and says, "Hey Mom, Dad, thanks for getting me a new motorcycle."  And walks off into his bedroom.  You look at each other and discuss whether either one of you told him he could have a motorcycle.  You both say no.  He walks out of his bedroom, walks by again and says, "Hey, thanks again for that motorcycle" and walks outside.

Now, if he would have asked for a motorcycle and you would have told him he could have one, and then he thanked you for it, then it wouldn’t be a problem.  But for him to just start thanking you for this motorcycle that he never asked for, and you never said he could have, is a little presumptuous to say the least.  The son in this scenario is just assuming that his parents will give him whatever he wants.  (Not whatever he asks for, but whatever he wants).  So he skips the ‘asking’ stage and goes right to the ‘thanking’ stage.  This is not a way to get on his parent’s good side!

Do we do this to the Lord?  What assumptions are we making if we assume that God will give us everything we want and that all we have to do is thank Him for it?

"…ye have not, because ye ask not." James 4:2.

First, we’re assuming that we don’t have to ask.  We’re assuming that even though the Lord tells us to ask, for whatever reason we think that doesn’t apply to us.  We’re thinking that our own wisdom and perspective is at least as good as God’s.  We’re not asking for any input from Him—His will, His opinion, His direction etc.  This is arrogance.  We need to ask God.  We ask Him because He knows more than we do and His wisdom is greater than ours is.  We also ask Him because if we really are serving Him then we will want to do what He wants.  If we truly are a servant of the Lord then our desire will be for every area of our life to be molded into exactly what He wants for it to be.  This means that we will ask not just for His permission, but for His opinion.

"…no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Psalms 84:11.

The second assumption we’re making is that we are walking uprightly.  We’re not even considering that we may have an unrighteous motive.  When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He started off by acknowledging the holiness of the Father’s name.  "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…" (Matthew 6:9).  Before we pray for things, we need to look at the big picture.  We need to learn to seek out God’s perspective.  We need to understand and accept the fact that He is pure love, pure goodness, pure life and pure truth.  Compared to Him our viewpoints and opinions fall far short of His holiness.

As we can see, making the assumption that we are wise and holy apart from God’s influence will get us in trouble.  He is our wisdom and He is our righteousness.  We don’t have it in ourselves apart from Him.  Of course our desire can be to learn to walk in His wisdom and righteousness in a greater way each day.  It is something we can do.  But the way to get there is not to make arrogant assumptions but to humbly seek Him out.  The whole idea of asking is that you are giving the giver the right to say no.  You are willing to accept whatever the giver decides.  By asking, we admit that God can see the intentions of our heart clearer than we can and if there is an area that needs to be changed then we trust His judgment.  If we deny that God has the right to say no then we are assuming that our wisdom and motives are pure when they may not be.  We have to be willing to expose our heart to Him and accept what He shows us as true.

Our God is a great God that loves to give to His children.  But don’t be like the spoiled rich kid who assumes that He doesn’t have to ask.  Be a child who is interested in the wisdom and the will of the Father instead of a child who simply uses the Father to feed his own desires.