The Giver of Good Gifts
A short meditation on the God of Abundance from Matthew 7
This week I’m sharing some short devotionals over at the Living Church. Here’s one of those reflections. I pray this blesses you.
A Reading from the Gospel of Matthew 7:7-11
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? 10 Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake? 11 If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Reflection
Few things reveal our understanding of God quite like prayer. This is why Jesus teaches us to pray by cranking up the volume on how we understand God’s generosity. What’s striking are the images he employs: praying is like asking someone who will give to you; praying is like seeking something you will find; praying is like knocking at a door that will be opened.
Jesus teaches that a key lesson for prayerfulness is the movement from scarcity to abundance. These verses come in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is teaching that when “the poor in spirit” (5:3) pray, they are not coming to a god who wishes to withhold; they are coming to the God of abundance who delights to answer requests, open doors, and give good gifts.
The scarcity mindset we bring to prayer often reveals that we view God more as a stingy master than a gracious giver. No wonder Jesus uses a lesser-to-great example, a powerful pedagogical tool, to shift our image of God. Good parents don’t curse or withhold good gifts from their children. If even good parents — who are “evil” by comparison to the inexhaustible goodness of God — know how to give good gifts, how much more can we expect from the God who fashioned us by hand, sustains our every breath, and offered himself in Christ for our salvation?
This doesn’t solve the ache and mystery of unanswered prayer, but even then, we know Jesus tasted such an ache in the garden of Gethesemane on our behalf. Here, his lesson is that the key to joy in prayer is not discipline but vision, a glimpse of the great abundance of God our Father, and the rejection of the lies of divine scarcity.