Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. – Jesus (Matt. 7:7)
Ask anything in my name and I will give it to you. – Jesus (John 14:14)
If two of you agree on anything you ask for, my father in heaven will give it. – Jesus (Matt. 18:19)
And the list goes on of places that Jesus tells us to ask the father. He never says, however, to QUESTION the father. There is a big difference between the two.
The difference in asking and questioning is in the doer’s seeking. Where the doer asking is seeking answer as the solution, a doer questioning is seeking to reveal motive. As a parent, or authority figure of any kind, would you want your children or subordinates questioning your motives? Yeah, didn’t think so and our Father God doesn’t really appreciate it either. We know the motives of our Father because he is Truth.
On my evening bike ride, just praying over my community, I asked the Lord what he wanted to talk to me about. He said my narrow view. He went on to explain that I was very good about not asking him the big WHY when he asked something of me. The reason, he said, that was easy for me was because I was making my own conclusions on his reason for having me do things. That’s a no, no.
We are not in control and every time we do things that give us a sense of control that is disrespectful to God. I don’t want to disrespect my heavenly Daddy and I hope you wouldn’t want to either.
Who would you be in the father/son dynamic? You could be the one always asking “why”. I think I get why many think that this is a reasonable approach to take in your relationship. I think the reason is you relate your relationship with Father to ANY human relationship where somebody always messes up. Since God can’t mess up, to you I would say, the why isn’t your business to know in order to obey.
Or you could be like I’ve been and made your own conclusions. Justifying our actions whether they are with the best intentions or not is still justifying and God is the only one with the just solution. He doesn’t let us in on his solutions a lot of the time because we will tell his how to make it better. That’s why we must renew our mind to the things of the Spirit so we stop pursuing the dead motivations of the flesh (Rom. 8). To us I say, it isn’t your business to figure out why in order to justify your obedience.
“Why” isn’t something we need to be asking God, but he gave us the Holy Spirit for us to ask HOW to as much as we need! Holy Spirit, how do we put these disrespectful habits to death and walk in a new light of willing obedience?
The W.O.R.D. 