Ben Fourie

“And so I say to you: Ask, and you will receive, seek and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Luke 11:9

The story in Luke 11 about a man who one night wanted to borrow three loaves of bread from a friend might not be that strange to many of us. When I was a small boy we, as many other people in our neighbourhood, were not well off. I remember many times my mother sent me around to a neighbour to borrow a cup of sugar or some eggs.

Jesus is telling a story about a man who found himself in a quandary when a visitor suddenly turned up one night and found him with an empty cupboard. The story is actually neither about friendship nor good neighbourliness, nor about a man who did not want to be bothered late at night with someone else’s problem.

The story is all about God who is always ready to listen to our prayers. At the beginning of this chapter Jesus taught his disciples a short but powerful prayer. The parable that he tells right after this about a man that was quite upset by being woken late at night by a friend who wanted to borrow bread. His door was after all already locked and his children in bed. One can imagine him thinking that his friend should not have been so careless as to be caught out with an empty larder. In spite of all this he did get up and provided the bread, not so much because it was his friend, but because the guy did not give up, but kept asking.

How much more can we trust God to help us when we turn to him in need. When we keep asking him, he is not grumpy, he does not have all kinds of excuses why he can’t help. When he does help us it is not because we are bothersome, but because he loves us.

Prayer: Thank you Lord that I may keep asking. Amen