Ask, Seek, Knock

And will you always get exactly what you have asked for? Well, God only gives good gifts.  Sometimes we don’t get exactly what we were asking for – but it’s as though God knows what is our heart’s desire and gives the thing that is right for us, which might not be exactly what we what we asked for - but is perhaps something necessary for us that has to come first.

Sometimes, in our ignorance, we ask God to give us what we think is bread – but God knows that that particular thing would be, for us, like a stone. And when that happens, I think God, who knows us far better than we could ever know ourselves, gives us what we need before He can give us what we are asking for!

When I was at school, aged sixteen or so, I wrote in my diary that I wanted to be a marriage guidance counsellor. How cheeky was that when I didn’t have the first clue about such a relationship! I was a schoolgirl.

But I believe that God knows my heart. And what I was expressing then, as a schoolgirl, was something deep about who I am.  I set off successfully on an academic career in English Literature; married, had my children, had a good job …  and then, out of the blue it seemed as though my husband and I both experienced chaos and disaster which shook every part of who we were together and individually.

Out of that experience, we both discovered depths about God, and received healing deep inside that we never knew possible. God kept us together – as we had always prayed He would – and brought us out of the chaos into a new place of healing.

With our world turned topsy turvy, we both discovered God’s restoration – of marriage, of deep pains of grief and loss; healing into deep areas of who we are. And, do you know, out of all the mess and restoration, God answered, for me, the cry of my heart as a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl: to minister healing to damaged people.