p. 562 | ASKING AND RECEIVING by Rusticus

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 36.

ASKING AND RECEIVING.

By Rusticus

I MET Diarca Doubtem as I was going to town the other evening. He said, "Rusticus, what's the matter? Anybody sick, that you go to town this time of day?"

"No," I replied. "I am going to prayer-meeting."

"So you believe in praying do you? Well, I don't. I used to, but I gave it up some years ago. I hardly ever got what I asked for, and when I did it was something that I could have got without asking. So I made up my mind to take care of myself as well as I could, and to get by hard work, or my wits, all that I could. Then I would feel that what I got was my own, and that I was not beholden to anybody. The Bible says, 'Ask, and ye shall receive;' but I know that it isn't so, for I have tried it."

"Perhaps you did not try in the right way. When God says, 'Ask, and ye shall receive,' he speaks to us as a father speaks to his children. This we know, because he goes right on to tell how much better he is than human fathers. Well, a father likes to have his children ask him for what they want, but he does not always give them just what they ask for. The other day I took home with me a vial of arsenic to poison rats. My boy, Johnnie, saw it. He thought that it was sugar, and he asked me to give him some. Did I say 'Certainly, my dear boy, I love you and I cannot refuse you anything that you ask for?' Of course not. But did I therefore not regard and respond to Johnnie's prayer? No indeed, I took out a paper of candy that I had brought for him, gave it to him instead of the poison that he wanted. So God deals with us. When we ask for something that is not best for us to have, he answers by giving us something better."

"But when I asked for something that I knew was good, God did not give it to me."

"Perhaps the reason was that he saw that you would not make a good use of it, if he gave it to you. Johnnie came the other day, and asked me for a dime. I often give him small sums of money; for I want him to learn how to use money. But this time something in the boy's manner led me to ask him what he wanted the dime for. He replied that a boy in the school had a beautiful toy pistol, and the other boys all wanted it, but none of them had money enough to buy it. So the owner proposed that each boy should bring a dime, and then he would put all their names into a hat, and the boy whose name was drawn out first should have the coveted pistol. Poor unsophisticated Johnnie did not see that there was anything wrong in this. But I object to children having pistols and to their taking lessons in gambling. So to keep Johnnie from being led into temptation, I did not give him the dime. And God says to us, 'Ye ask and ye receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.' If you ask the Lord for a gallon of whisky to get drunk on, he would show his love for you by not giving it to you."

"All your stories don't touch my case. The last time that I prayed I asked the Lord for that which is both good and useful—for a big crop of wheat. I wanted $1,000 for a practical purpose. I ploughed that forty-acre field deep, and harrowed it until it was mellow, and sowed it just at the right time with good seed, and then I prayed every day that the Lord would give me thirty bushels to the acre, but I got only ten, and was $1,000 poorer than I ought to have been."

"Then it was not really the wheat that you wanted, but the money that it would bring. May I ask what you intended to do with the $1,000 if the Lord had given it to you?"

"Certainly. I had a grand speculation in view. Sam Steck I knew was in debt. His place which joins mine was mortgaged, and would have to be sold. Times were dull, and if it had come into the sheriff's hands just then, it would have been bid off for half of its value. I meant to be on hand with my $1,000, and get that piece of land."

"And so you asked the Lord to give you a first-rate wheat crop so that you might get money to take advantage of your neighbor's embarrassment, and buy his property at less than half its value! And you are angry with the Lord because he did not furnish that money in answer to your prayer? If he had done so he would have been a party to your plan for oppressing the poor. I don't wonder that the Lord did't hear your prayer!"

Diarca had not seen the matter in that light before, and was taken aback by being compelled to admit that he wanted to get the Lord to help him turn another man out of house and home. But there are a good many people whose prayers are just as selfish and wicked as his, and yet they don't seem to know it, and wonder why the Lord don't answer them. The asking which has the promise of receiving, is that which honors God—which recognizes his wisdom, which says, even when making the most definite requests for things that we think we really and urgently need, "Not my will, but thine be done."—"Rusticus," in Occident.