ASKING FOR NOTHING

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 1, 1879

ASKING FOR NOTHING.

The following simple incident strikingly illustrates many a prayer offered to the Most High:—

Little Bob begged hard the other day, when some friends were dining with us, to be allowed to come in and sit at the table during dessert, which I told him he might do, provided he neither talked nor annoyed people by asking for fruit. He very readily assented to this condition, which he honestly fulfilled to the letter. At last I heard the poor little fellow crying and sobbing most pitifully.

“What is the matter, Bob?” I said; “what are you crying about?”

“Why, pa,” he replied, “here I am, asking for nothing, and getting it.”

Look now at the promise: “He that asketh, receiveth.” “If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.” “Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” “Ask and receive, that your joy may be full.”

These are the promises of Him who has said: “All power is given unto me, in Heaven and in earth.” We ask for every good thing which God has promised; why are they not bestowed? Why do those who offer these petitions continue to cry, “My leanness, my leanness!” Has God closed his ear to the cry of the needy? Does he not intend to give what he has promised? This is the cause of failure: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” There is no faith that the prayer will be answered. Indeed, if one in ten of all the prayers offered to God were answered, the petitioners would be the most astonished persons in the world. We must remember that there is no real asking, unless it be “in faith.” For want of this faith, “we ask for nothing, and get it.”

How many addresses are made to God, without confession or supplication; giving him information on various subjects; telling him how great he is, how long he has existed, what he has done, and what we have failed to do. This is not praying. Prayer is supplication, entreaty; it is to urge, to implore; and all “in faith, nothing doubting.” This kind of prayer gets what it asks for, because it asks “according to the will of God.”—Advocate of Christian Holiness.