“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.” – Matthew 7:7-8

God’s promise to every believer is that if we seek His kingdom first, we will have everything we need to do His will. He promises to sustain us long enough until the work we are to do on this earth is done. God also promises to only give good gifts to his children.

What about the desires of our hearts? Psalms 37:4 tells us to delight ourselves in the lord and he will give us the desires of our hearts. When we walk with Christ, our desires become more aligned with God’s desires for us. When we ask according to His will, he will give us everything we ask for.

We know that quite often, the answer to our prayers is not immediate. A lot of times our requests are either not aligned with God’s will for us or we are not ready to receive what we are asking for. If we receive something we are not ready to receive, then the gift is not a good gift and will only hurt us in the long run.

Instead of asking God for everything we desire, I think it is a wise thing to analyze what it is we want to ask for, examine our hearts, and see if we are truly ready to receive what we want to ask for. We need to become the person we need to be prior to receiving the gifts we want. The answer isn’t to do more, but to become more.

Who we become is much more important than what we do. What we do flows out of who we are. Our focus should not be on getting what we want but on becoming the person God wants us to become.

Our desires can be strong, even painfully strong. However, when we pray and ask and still don’t receive what we ask for, perhaps it is a prompting from God to prepare and to become the person who you need to become.

Be encouraged.

-Phil