I was challenged by the Holy Spirit the other morning with a simple question… What Are You Asking For? I thought about it and focused on several things, but His response in my spirit was short and sweet… You are asking amiss!

When He asked me that question my first thought was that familiar verse in Luke…

Luke 11:9-10 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

But He took me to the Old Testament (where He has kept me for the past two years)…

Jer 29:13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

These scriptures opened up my thinking about just what I have been asking for, seeking after, and knocking to achieve… and in all truth there were things in there that were other than the Lord. It made me stop and think about why God withdrew Himself from Israel as He did in Hosea…

Hos 5:6 They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself from them.

Israel was seeking God in the wrong places; here she was seeking Him with sacrifices to other gods. God will not be found when our loyalty and allegiance, even our worship, is given to seeking anything or any person above Him. If our focus is first to ask, seek, and knock to find out where He is and what He is asking of us, then we can be sure that He will answer our prayers and we will “find Him.”

Our entire focus in life is “to know God,” and all of the other things that we are to be asking about will become perfectly clear as they will all lead us to finding Him. And we need to be asking, seeking, and knocking with “all our heart.” For it’s then that we will receive His answer…

Luke 11:13b … how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

He will then give us everything that we ask for that will draw us closer to Him. His answers will always point us in the right direction as the Holy Spirit knows the mind of the Lord and wants to share it with us.

Yes, ask but don’t ask amiss!