UNPACKING ASK, SEEK, KNOCK:

brittbryan1001
Sep 17, 2022
9 min read

And refusing to claim that baggage.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

-Matthew 7:7

A friend recently asked me to share what I knew about that passage. So, naturally, rather than responding with a thoughtful but short answer, I wrote a blog post about it. Because as I got to thinking about this verse, and reading it in its full context, I realized there’s actually a lot packed in there.

I don’t think anyone truly believes God is their own personal genie, where they rub the bottle and say a prayer and voila! Wish granted. (Well, actually some prosperity gospel preachers come pretty close to selling that image of God…and sadly, someone is always buying it. Kate Bowler has an awesome book about the history of the American Prosperity Gospel called Blessed. Check it out.)

But all the same, we have used the surface level version of this passage to mean something pretty close to the genie image, which is this: as long as we ask and seek and knock in the right way, God will answer our prayers. Like God is playing hide and seek, cunningly taunting us to find him, waiting for us to pass some test before he will reveal himself and answer our prayers.

Which begs the question: okay then, so what’s the right way to pray to get the results I want??

Well, first of all, that’s not what we are meant to get from that verse. And second, before we unpack what (I believe) we are supposed to get from this particular passage, I think we have to first acknowledge that we might be arriving with our own baggage and assumptions about a God who has hidden himself from us.

So, it would be helpful if we could leave all of that at the door and come to this scripture with an open mind and heart. Easier said than done, I know. But so much beauty and meaning and joy is waiting on the other side if we can do that…

I’ve tried to “pack” my thoughts into three main points. The first is this:

1. CONTEXT MATTERS

Like anything in scripture, this verse needs to be read in its proper context and not in isolation.

It comes from the Sermon on the Mount, and therefore should be read within the context of the entire sermon, which is about a new way to see God. (Read Matthew 5-7). While this particular passage comes from the seventh chapter of Matthew, it’s important to read what happens before and after this line and to know what was going on at the time.

We have to remember Jesus was subversively confronting the Pharisees, who claimed that only certain people - the most spiritual, the chosen, righteous ones - had access to God.

Keeping that in mind, imagine now that you were there when Jesus opened his sermon with this:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

You probably would have shifted uncomfortably in your seat. If you were broken or an outcast, you would have been on the edge of your seat, hungry for what he might say next. If you were a Pharisee, you would’ve left to go report the heretic.

When Jesus said the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit, it blew the lid off the box they tried to put God in prior to that. (And by the way, the goal isn’t to be poor in spirit, of course. But the comfort is in knowing that if you do find yourself in that condition, you’re blessed too, and the kingdom of heaven is also for you. That was then and is still today a revolutionary idea.)

This is just an example of how we ought to know and understand the context before we quote Jesus, or any passage of scripture. We have to think about what Jesus was trying to communicate when he said this. And he was not giving us the secret code for “How to Win Friends and Influence People” or how to “Become a Better You” or even “Nine Ways to Connect with God.”

So, what was he doing when he said to ask, seek and knock? Well, first let’s look at what he wasn’t doing. This brings me to my second point.

2. IT'S NOT A FORMULA

If we don’t keep the importance of context at the forefront of our minds, we can get derailed when we read the very next verse: “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” -Matthew 7:8

This is the bread and butter of the prosperity gospel.

do this + believe that + pray this way = blessings abound!

That’s obviously what this verse means, right?

This passage of scripture is not a formula for us to control God, or to treat him as a divine vending machine where we put our prayers in, and out pops our blessing. In this view, God is a puppet master who pulls strings based on the righteousness of my prayers. Like he is standing just off stage, waiting to enter my situation for when I give him the right cue.

Where do we get this view of God?

Well, because that’s what we’ve been taught. That whatever we ask God for will be given to us - IF AND ONLY IF - we have done and said the right things.

Then when God doesn’t answer our prayers, we either turn away from him altogether, or we develop this twisted view that we must be bad and sinful and dirty, which leads to self-loathing.

This is such an unhealthy view of God and wreaks havoc on relationships. This God is controlling and retaliatory. This God arbitrarily gives and withholds blessings, and quite frankly, cannot be trusted. I do not believe a loving God controls us in this way, because love simply doesn’t control (for more on this theology of the uncontrolling love of God, check out Thomas Jay Oord’s God Can’t. That book was healing and revolutionary for my faith.)

Nor do I believe that God is waiting on his invitation before he will enter my situation. I believe God is already in the thick of it with me, whether I ask or not. I believe he cares deeply about the things that I care about and is hurt by the things that hurt me.

I just don’t think this part of Jesus’ sermon is about asking and seeking God in the “right way” in order to have our prayers answered or for him to draw near to us. Rather, I think it is about the way we approach God with confidence, knowing he is already with us. In other words, God cares and is close. He’s not far away and aloof.

The asking and the knocking are the easy parts. I think maybe it’s in the seeking God that is the whole point. Seeking takes humility and honesty (and usually a heavy dose of desperation). It also takes a willingness to act upon what you find in the seeking. And the hope is you lean into the people all around you who have wisdom, and find that you’re not ever alone and you are loved beyond measure and without conditions.

And when you finally stand still long enough to accept and bask in that all-encompassing love, you should take your shoes off, because that’s holy ground. That’s where you encounter God.

Which brings me to my third and final point.

3. IT'S NOT EVEN ABOUT PRAYER (well it is; it’s just not only about prayer)

Ask, seek, knock is not only about how we relate to God; it’s about how we relate to others, as well.

Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy, says that, “We should note that the ask-seek-knock teaching first applies to our approach to others, not to prayer to God.”

Wait, what?

This is not how we read this scripture, though, is it? Even in the healthiest approach, we read it as if it is about our posture in how we ask God for things in prayer.

Willard goes on to say, “Asking is indeed the great law of the spiritual world through which things are accomplished in cooperation with God and yet in harmony with the freedom and worth of every individual.”

I had to read that a couple times, but I love the thought of working in harmony with God. I never could get on board with sitting back, raising my hands in the air, saying, “Jesus take the wheel.” Rather, I am partnering with and working alongside God, to accomplish good goals for myself and the world around me. And we are to partner with one another in this manner as well.

I think an illustration helps here.

Let’s keep with our packing and unpacking theme. Say you asked a friend to help you move. In those moments, you and your friend are united together in and towards a common goal. The reason they helped you is because you asked - you did not demand that they help you.

(But let’s just imagine you said that for a sec: “I demand that you come help me move this Saturday.” How do you think that friend would respond? If it were me, not only would I not help you, I’d likely terminate that friendship quick-like.)

“A request by its very nature unites. A demand, by contrast, immediately separates.” (Again, that’s from Willard).

A request implies a choice, and choice implies freedom, which is necessary to feel safe. A request like this is made within the bounds of relationship, built on mutual love and respect. The result is that you are together in this thing, because you asked and they accepted.

In other words, choose to love and serve one another. Choose to devote your life to following Jesus. And this is the kingdom life I believe Jesus was getting at. He was telling us to ask and seek and knock like that.

So, I think we ought to ask ourselves now, do our relationships feel like requests or demands? Do we feel safety and freedom in our relationships, or do we feel locked in and cornered?

To be totally honest, I never got that out of this scripture before. I really thought it was about my personal prayers to God. But again, if we are reading it all together and in context, then what are we supposed to do with verse 12?

“Therefore, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” -Matthew 7:12

We know this as The Golden Rule. Treat others how you want to be treated.

But the “Therefore” opening shouldn’t be dismissed, because “therefore" is another way of saying, “to summarize the whole point.” It implies that we should refer back to the previous verses. (Again, read in context!) Put together, Jesus is saying this is how we are meant to treat one another - with the level of respect we would hope others would extend to us.

And Jesus says this sums up the entire law. And the law all comes back to love. Maybe that’s an overly simplified explanation. But maybe it’s just not that complicated to begin with. Could it really be that ask, seek, knock is not about asking things of God as much as it is about asking those around us, while serving one another in love and respect?

Does any of that change the way we approach this passage of scripture? All I know is that it did for me.

A FINAL WORD ABOUT ASK, SEEK, KNOCK….

I strongly believe context matters when we read the Bible. And while I do not believe that the context of this specific passage is giving us a formula for how to pray, I absolutely do believe that prayer is a powerful spiritual practice, and the Bible is clear about the importance of prayer.

At the end of the day, I pray not to change God, but for God to change me. I pray because it strengthens my relationship with God. I pray because it develops my character and hones a posture of faithfulness that makes me feel stronger and more capable of handling what comes my way.

And so I ask, and I seek, and I knock. It’s just that sometimes, I ask for help from my husband, and I seek wisdom from my Women’s Group at church. And sometimes, the door I knock on is calling my mother for support and wisdom.

God puts people in our lives to partner with so that we are never alone. I highly recommend making sure you have people around you who will answer when you ask, seek, and knock. And that you extend that same love and respect back to those around you.

Put quite simply, it’s less about ME and more about WE. That’s the Kingdom Life. That’s the good news of the Gospel. That’s the stuff we ought to ask for, to seek, and to find on the other side of the open door.