Keep on Keeping on

Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened. (Matthew 7:7-8 AMP)

In order to 'keep on', one must have begun in the first place. If you have been waiting for God to answer a 'hoped for' something in your life and you have never sat down to talk with him about it, how can you expect it? It isn't that God doesn't already know what we desire, but he may need to help us clarify what it is we need, when the right timing will be, and exactly how he will meet that desire. In asking, we set out our desire. In listening, he often brings clarity we might have missed otherwise. 

Ask, seek, and knock. None of these are passive. All suggest an element of us taking some form of action. Receive, find, and open are God's actions on our behalf. Too many times, we expect to receive but have never asked. We might ask, but do we take the time to seek out what God wants for us and what a delay may mean in terms of what we are asking? Do we keep on exploring it with him until we know with a certainty what he is asking of us? It could be we are to wait, that the timing isn't right, or that what we think we need is really not even close to what he has prepared for us already.

Notice that we aren't banging down God's door to get our way. We maintain a reverence in our seeking. We know he will never open a door to us that will bring us harm. Most of those doors are pried open by our own stubborn will! He might even present us with a different door - one we never thought would be opened to us. When he does, do we pursue it, or are we going to dig in our feet and stubbornly wait for the door WE wanted opened to be opened? The more we resist what he is doing or revealing to us, the longer we will ask, seek, and knock on a door that isn't ever going to open!

Keep on keeping on. That was a phrase popular some years back, but the idea is one of perseverance. We don't give up, we don't give in, we don't let up. Sometimes we see a delay as God telling us we are asking amiss. It may just be that he is setting things up 'just right' in our lives so that when we receive, we are both ready and willing to take what we receive with all joy. Just sayin!