[AI translation] In the course of a series of commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount, I have now read this passage. Here it is again about prayer. It is almost striking how much Jesus talks about prayer. Time and again in his teachings he brings it up again and again, and always gives his followers a new perspective on it. This shows how great an importance Jesus attaches to prayer, what an unspeakable opportunity and privilege it is for a man to pray. Indeed, prayer is the most elementary and fundamental exercise of our whole relationship with God. It is almost self-evident that a believer is a praying person. Surely we all pray in some way. Only now the question is: how? Is it the right way, the right way, the way Jesus taught us? Well, let's look at it now in the light of the words of Jesus that we read!Notice what divine authority is in these words: ask, seek, knock! What an unimaginable opportunity is given here for divine help in every human need. Jesus is not explaining in theory what prayer is, how it comes before God, how such a mysterious relationship between God and man is possible, but simply inviting us to it: Begin, do it: ask, seek, cry out. A többit bízzátok az Istenre. Prayer is not something to be contemplated, but to be practised, because it is free to be practised. It is free to ask, to stretch out an empty, asking hand like a sick child to a father leaning anxiously over him; it is free to seek, like a weary wanderer in the dark, the inviting light of home; it is free to knock, to knock at the door of God's heart. If something is hurting, if something is missing, if there is any trouble, Jesus says: ask him for help,
He who is always ready to listen. Seek the solution with Him who always comes to you with love; knock at the door of Him who always waits for you. To Him you can tell everything, To Him you can discuss everything.
Ask, seek, invoke! Actually, all three mean the same thing, but there is still an intensification. For example, just asking for someone's address is the very first stage of a serious enquiry. If I then find my way to their house, it's more than that. It's even more if I'm standing outside their door and knocking on their door. There are many people who ask, always asking. Fewer still who are serious seekers, and fewer still who have already knocked, knocked if they must, knocked until something happens. When I have knocked, it means that I am now really serious about solving my problems and I am now seeking an immediate hearing.
So pray - Jesus says: asking, seeking, knocking. Jesus empowers us, so we can live it! I know very well that the biggest concern of many believing parents is that their children come to faith. Don't get tired of asking for it, of knocking and knocking again! I know that many family lives are so messed up that there is almost no way out of the problems. But there is! Look for it, look for it again! I know that there are those of us here who are overwhelmed by the waves of financial problems. There are those who, under the weight of the adversity that is upon them, feel that there is no more. There are those who are struggling with their tasks or a secret sin, with their strength weakening, and who feel they can take no more. It is precisely for such people that Jesus encourages: there is help for you, just ask again, seek again, press harder! Try to grasp it with more fervent, more persistent prayer of asking, seeking and knocking! If there is anything in the world that is not a vain, fruitless attempt, this is it.
Oh how many times I have experienced the power of this empowerment of Jesus in preparation for a sermon. Do you think it is easy to prepare a sermon for a congregation? Oh, no! Many times I feel: I can't go on... And then I ask again, I ask harder, and I get it again. I search, I search some more, and I find it again. I knock, I almost bang, and then suddenly the door opens again. If Jesus says ask, seek and knock, then let us ask, seek and knock! Then again, let us ask and seek and knock again. Jesus adds to this great empowerment with just such a great promise. He says: "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened" (Mt 7,8). He has sought and not found. He knocked, but to no avail. So how is he? Here we must be careful what Jesus says. He does not say that what a man asks for, he receives. No. He says: he who asks, receives. Maybe not exactly what he asked for, but he will still get something. Maybe something different, but you get something anyway. It is not that God ignores the request.
A great preacher once told me that his little daughter prayed for something that was beyond the father's financial ability. He did not get it. A few days later the father wanted to know if his daughter's faith had suffered because of it, and asked her, "Didn't God hear your prayer? And the little girl was right, because this no is also an answer. And sometimes it is perhaps the best answer God can give! Anyone who has heard God say no to prayer knows how bitter it can be. Sometimes our whole faith gets tangled up in it. And yet, behind such a "no" is not indifference or unlovingness, but an infinite love that sees further and knows better what is truly good for the one who asks. I am convinced that it hurts God too when He has to say no to a pleading request and seemingly be firm. But Jesus on the cross is a guarantee that God's "no" is also a "yes" to His love. To this Jesus refers in these words, "Who is there among you who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? And if he asks for a fish, will he give him a snake?" (Mt 7:9-10)
Then there is also that perhaps the time has not yet come for God to give what someone has asked of him. But delay does not mean refusal. I knew someone who prayed for 40 years for a man's conversion, until finally, after the death of the man who had prayed for him, he was converted. How many times did my children, when they were small, ask me for a blushing peach from the tree in the garden here. But I knew that the peaches were still unripe and would spoil their little stomachs. I used to say: that peach will be yours, don't worry, you'll get it as soon as it's ripe. There's a great verse, "And if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have our requests which we have asked of him." (1 John 5:15) It's absolutely true that "He that asketh receiveth all things; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh shall he be opened." (Mt 7,8)
I said before: he may get something different from what he asked for, he may find something different from what he sought, but one thing is certain: better, more, greater. God does not do good to us as much as we ask or think, but always more than that. What would happen to us if we only received what we asked for? Of Monica, the mother of Augustine, it is recorded that she begged God very fervently that her son should not leave home for a foreign country, for fear that the light-hearted boy would go completely mad. God refused to grant this particular request. The boy did go away from home. But in this very way God fulfilled the mother's long yearning for her son to be converted and become a child of God. There, in that foreign land, Augustine was so influenced that his whole life was turned upside down and he became one of the brightest stars in all Christendom. Did not God listen to the mother's plea for which she had knocked so much? Yes, but in a different way. More powerful, richer, more overflowing than the mother's heart had imagined. Jesus says so simply: "If you therefore, being evil, can give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?" Only good things. What His love and wisdom sees good for us. God always wants to give the best. And the truly deep prayer that seeks to get the best from God is asking for it, seeking it, and knocking for it. And what is the best? God himself. As I have said so many times: ask God for God himself! Can God give anyone more than just Himself?
Prayer is not a magic spell by which we mobilize God to do our will, but a conscious act of faith and obedience by which we come to know and embrace God's will. Prayer does not draw God to us, but draws us to God. It brings our will into alignment with His will so that we can accomplish things that would otherwise be beyond our ability. Those who truly pray are those who thereby connect themselves to the will of God. One of the world's most intelligent men, a world-renowned believer, once said: 'In my prayer I seldom ask for certain things, but I ask God more and more for myself, for the certainty that my will and His will will will not diverge. If this is so, then I know that I will have all that I need." Indeed, when I receive Him in a community of love, my prayer is already answered and fruitful. Gifts are incidental. Unfortunately, the problem is that for most people, it is the gifts that are important, like the little boy who once said that: I love Daddy because he gives me a few pennies every day. Begging for pennies, and loving for pennies, is a part of immature childhood. It is a sign of underage faith. Ask until you receive God, seek until you find the One who said of Himself, "I am the way" (John 14:6a). Thus prayer becomes the power to help you through difficulties, to climb insurmountable mountains, to do impossible things, to bear unbearable burdens. For the living God himself is at work in us and with us when we pray in this way.
Finally, this also shows that true prayer is not just a spiritual exercise, not just a devotional piety, but something very practical. In true prayer one is always given a concrete task by God. It is not by chance that after the words on the power of prayer in the Word, we find this statement of Jesus, which seems to lead us into a completely different line of thought: 'Whatever you would that men should do to you, do to them also; for this is the law and the prophets' (Mt 7,12). Prayer that does not make you more loving towards the people around you is not really prayer. Worship that does not also mean respecting and loving other people is not worship. Only he is truly a friend of God who is also a good friend and well-wisher of people. The peace, strength, joy and life that we take from God in prayer must be used daily in loving help for others. As Jesus says.
How simple this rule is and yet how difficult! Is it not the source of all kinds of discomfort and bitterness, whether at work or at home, that we go there expecting to be acknowledged, praised, served? And yet we don't even notice that the other person, there beside us, may be sad, lonely, desperate. Jesus says: do to him what you would do to yourself in such a situation, that someone might quietly squeeze your hand, put an encouraging hand on your shoulder. We receive all the good things from God every day! Shouldn't we repay this by going out of our way to help someone who needs it? What you wish for yourself from another, do first to him. If you always expect the other person to be kind, understanding and good to you, why do you pray? Isn't it precisely to ask, seek, and knock most fervently that we should be able to relate to those around us with more love and kindness than we can show ourselves?
Ask, seek, knock," says Jesus. So let our whole life, through many, many answered prayers, become a peaceful, happy, rich and blessed life!
Amen
Date: 29 May 1965.
Lesson
Fil 4,4-7