Have you ever been confronted with silence from God? I have. In those moments, it is a struggle to move past the initial feeling of wonder about my own guilt to be able to dwell on God’s reasons for remaining silent. Often, I fall on this thought in the wake of my inability to hear God’s voice – “if God gave me His word right now, am I ready to receive it? Might I not think wrongly about it?”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, 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 7:7-12
So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
Often, God will orient us to His word before He speaks. Being perfect, and precise, God does not give commands lightly or instruct whimsically. Instead, when He delivers a word to us, he cultivates it in our soul before, during and after. And yet we, in our excitement, or pride, or ambition or else can take His word easily to a place where it ought not to go. I remember a time when God spoke clearly to me in metaphor. I had been asking for a determination, and He said “put it on the shelf”. In telling me this, He was developing a whole theology of waiting in my soul. But the instruction felt clear, that I was to have patience. That He would take care of my trouble. I needed only to be still. He had planted the seed of the question, applied the instruction, and then He was taking the reigns on resolve.
Imagine this kind of thinking when Jesus drops the golden rule into His sermon. He first sets up the context: ask, seek, knock. Are you asking of God? Are you answering Him? Are you seeking His will? Are you sharing your mind with Him? Are you knocking on His door, waiting to come in? Do you open the door to Him when He knocks? Jesus is showing us how God wishes to be treated. He wishes to be answered, to attain discovery, and to be let in. Will you do to God as you wish He would do to you? More so – do you ever give Him good gifts? Are you a good son or daughter? Knowing that I can bring God the kind of elation He brings me with me by simply answering Him is such blessing. Bless Him today.