What do you expect from God?

Today we come to end of our first week of Great Lent, keeping in mind as I said yesterday, the weekdays are different from the weekends. By the time you attend Church services tonight, the color will change back to bright, and lights will be on again. So, what have we learned so far this week? If you only learned about menus, robes and lights, then you missed the point of our Daily Lenten Journey. Great Lent is about forgiveness, repentance, Communion. It is about giving yourself to God, “as a living sacrifice” (Romans 12.1) That is what YOU offer God, but what do you expect FROM God?

In the Gospel reading from last night’s Great Compline, we hear God make us an offer.

The Lord said, ‘Ask and it will be given you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!’ (Matthew 7.7-11)

Is this an ‘open invitation’ to ask God for whatever wish desire? It may be, if what we desire is “good” for us. God is not suggesting that a loving father will give just anything to his children. A serpent is not a good thing for any child. In the same way, sometimes the thing we desire are not “good” for us, so our loving God says, ‘NO!”

It is our Great Lenten Journey that will assist us in coming to terms with God’s answer. As I have said many times, “God always answers our prayers. Sometimes the answer is no.” When we spend our energy in forgiveness and repentance, fasting and Communion, then our heart is more likely to understand what is “good” for us in the first place. Once we understand that, we won’t ask God for serpents, but for bread. He has already given us something much better than bread. He is the Bread of Life.

I might suggest looking again at this Gospel lesson in this way…

Ask for God and it will be given you, seek God, and you will find Him. It all depends upon what we expect from God.