Bobbing for scorpions
This week's pilfered goodness is from Luke 11:9-13:
I was listening to a podcast the other day and heard a cool teaching on these verses, so I'm going to steal bits of it and give them to you, because that's how I roll. It's a great indirect interpretation that answers the question of what happens if you pray for something stupid and self-destructive, like a copy of Windows XP instead of Linux or Mac. (As long as I'm being naughty by stealing, I might as well also get the anti-Microsoft dig in there.)
So if you're like me, you probably have an angel on one shoulder who says "Pray boldly for what you want. God loves you." and a devil on the other shoulder who says "Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it. God will reward your ignorance with an exact literal interpretation of your stupid request, because stupidity should hurt." So you start off in prayer for some stupid selfish thing you want, but then you're like "Gaah! What if..." So then you spend all of this time agonizing over whether what you want is Jesus-approved, and whether you're going to ruin your life by talking to Jesus, and whether or not it might just be better to ask for a nice football instead of the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle that you really want. So your prayer life gets lame and full of all sorts of self-doubt and angst.
The thing is, these two paragraphs kind of go together and complete each other. The first bit, about the knocking on sleepy guys' doors for bread, is all about the bold, persistent, embarrassing pursuit of your request. Unimaginative idiots stop at that half and start asking for what they want without reading the rest of the instruction manual. If only we were all so lucky. The second half is all about God's love for us, despite what we might want. It's about the father who knows that if he feeds his kids only ice cream, like they ask for, that those kids will get scurvy. When he gives them oatmeal, it's not because he can't hear them, or because he doesn't love them anymore. He just doesn't want his kids to have scurvy, because that's for pirates, not his beloved kids. Self-conflicted contingency planners like some of us, who are too smart to not look for the fine print, are rewarded by continuing on to this half.
We all do our best to pray God's will for our lives. We also know some things that are not God's will for us. Most stuff we genuinely want doesn't fall into either of those categories. What Jesus is saying here is to go ahead and ask for it. The worst he's going to do is say "no" and give you something better. You're not going to get scurvy. God has you covered.
It also does a good job of explaining why you don't always get what you ask for. Maybe you really wanted that ice cream. Too much ice cream will make you sick, but you don't care. You think that's just the other kids, and that you're specifically designed to run on ice cream, like the human version of some kind of super high tech concept car. So you ask, sure that it's God's will to give you the tummy fuel your body was designed for, only to get some stupid oatmeal, and not even the kind with puzzles on the packets and six tablespoons of sugar mixed in. By reading these verses, and understanding what God is getting at, you realize he doesn't hate you. You don't have to be afraid to ask, nor do you have to read subterfuge into God's responses. Even though the verses aren't specifically about the ice-cream versus oatmeal debate, they reveal enough about the character of God to explain the answer.
God is eager to give us gifts that will nourish and build us. He will even risk having us not like him for a while by doing so. We don't know what he has for us until we ask him for it. Not all of his gifts are unsolicited. Sometimes we need to ask, even if we have to be embarrassing and stubborn in the process.
"So I say to you: 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; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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 the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
I was listening to a podcast the other day and heard a cool teaching on these verses, so I'm going to steal bits of it and give them to you, because that's how I roll. It's a great indirect interpretation that answers the question of what happens if you pray for something stupid and self-destructive, like a copy of Windows XP instead of Linux or Mac. (As long as I'm being naughty by stealing, I might as well also get the anti-Microsoft dig in there.)
So if you're like me, you probably have an angel on one shoulder who says "Pray boldly for what you want. God loves you." and a devil on the other shoulder who says "Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it. God will reward your ignorance with an exact literal interpretation of your stupid request, because stupidity should hurt." So you start off in prayer for some stupid selfish thing you want, but then you're like "Gaah! What if..." So then you spend all of this time agonizing over whether what you want is Jesus-approved, and whether you're going to ruin your life by talking to Jesus, and whether or not it might just be better to ask for a nice football instead of the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle that you really want. So your prayer life gets lame and full of all sorts of self-doubt and angst.
The thing is, these two paragraphs kind of go together and complete each other. The first bit, about the knocking on sleepy guys' doors for bread, is all about the bold, persistent, embarrassing pursuit of your request. Unimaginative idiots stop at that half and start asking for what they want without reading the rest of the instruction manual. If only we were all so lucky. The second half is all about God's love for us, despite what we might want. It's about the father who knows that if he feeds his kids only ice cream, like they ask for, that those kids will get scurvy. When he gives them oatmeal, it's not because he can't hear them, or because he doesn't love them anymore. He just doesn't want his kids to have scurvy, because that's for pirates, not his beloved kids. Self-conflicted contingency planners like some of us, who are too smart to not look for the fine print, are rewarded by continuing on to this half.
We all do our best to pray God's will for our lives. We also know some things that are not God's will for us. Most stuff we genuinely want doesn't fall into either of those categories. What Jesus is saying here is to go ahead and ask for it. The worst he's going to do is say "no" and give you something better. You're not going to get scurvy. God has you covered.
It also does a good job of explaining why you don't always get what you ask for. Maybe you really wanted that ice cream. Too much ice cream will make you sick, but you don't care. You think that's just the other kids, and that you're specifically designed to run on ice cream, like the human version of some kind of super high tech concept car. So you ask, sure that it's God's will to give you the tummy fuel your body was designed for, only to get some stupid oatmeal, and not even the kind with puzzles on the packets and six tablespoons of sugar mixed in. By reading these verses, and understanding what God is getting at, you realize he doesn't hate you. You don't have to be afraid to ask, nor do you have to read subterfuge into God's responses. Even though the verses aren't specifically about the ice-cream versus oatmeal debate, they reveal enough about the character of God to explain the answer.
God is eager to give us gifts that will nourish and build us. He will even risk having us not like him for a while by doing so. We don't know what he has for us until we ask him for it. Not all of his gifts are unsolicited. Sometimes we need to ask, even if we have to be embarrassing and stubborn in the process.
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