Ask for Something Specific

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Matthew 7:7-11 "'Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!'"

Think

Somebody is making a food run and asks what you want, and you say, “I do not care, just get me whatever.”

And then they come back with whatever, and you eat it, and it is fine. It is completely fine. But you did not want that, and you knew what you wanted the entire time, and for some reason you would rather have the wrong thing than say the specific thing out loud.

A lot of prayer sounds exactly like that.

God bless my school. God be with my friends. God be with everyone traveling. God bless this food and the hands that prepared it.

None of that is wrong. All of it is vague enough that you would never know if God answered it.

Jesus says to ask, to seek, to knock. Three verbs, all of them specific, all of them active. Then he tells a little story about a kid asking a dad for bread, and the dad does not hand him a rock. The whole illustration only works because the kid asked for a particular thing.

And notice the point Jesus is making. It is not, “Ask correctly and you unlock God.” It is, “Look at how much better your Father is than you assume.” If a normal parent knows how to give good things, how much more him.

So this week, get specific. Here are five prayers. They are short on purpose. Pray them by name.

“God, use me. Not somebody in the room who is more qualified. Me, this week, at that school, in that class. Show me the person you want me to notice, and let me actually do it instead of thinking about it.”

“God, save my friends.” Say their names. Not my friends in general. Say the three names you already thought of when you read that sentence. “God, save Jordan. God, save my brother.” Say it out loud so it is a real request and not a mood.

“God, move at my school.” Name the building. Name the hallway where the hardest conversations happen. Ask God to do something there that nobody can take credit for.

“God, give me boldness.” Do not just admire Peter, who went from denying Jesus at a fire to preaching him in public. Ask for what Peter had, and expect God to answer it with an opportunity that scares you a little.

“God, change me.” This is the one everybody skips, because it is easier to ask God to fix a school than to ask him to fix you. Ask him anyway. You know what needs to change. You have known for a while.

Now watch the order of those five. Use me. Save my friends. Move at my school. Give me boldness. Change me.

That is this entire series. Every week has been building toward a person who prays like that.

And there is one more thing to say about specific prayer. It is the only kind you can watch God answer. Vague prayers cannot be answered in a way you would notice. Specific prayers can. Which means specific praying is how your faith actually grows, because you start collecting evidence.

Six months from now you want to be able to point at something and say, “I asked God for that on a Monday in September.”

Stop saying, “Just get me whatever.”

Apply

Pray all five – Pray those five prayers today with real names and real places filled in. Write the names somewhere you will see them so you can come back in a month and check what God has done.

Pray

Father, thank you that you are better than I assume and that you give good gifts to your children. Use me this week, save my friends whose names you already know, move at my school, and give me boldness. And change me, starting with the thing I have been avoiding. In Jesus’ name. Amen.