Have Not Because You Have Not Asked........

You ask with the wrong motive! (James 4:3)

I created this in 2015. It was good to remind myself of how far God has brought me in my walk with Him. I hope it speaks to you as well. 

Chris’s family owned The Shepherd’s Staff for a few years. We were surrounded, day in and day out with God. Talk about a dream job. I am not sure exactly when it happened, or even why for that matter. We had individuals come, with the best intentions mind you, and they were on fire for God. They were loving and kind and vibrant and happy and at the time, I personally did not have a home church. I was not grounded in my relationship with God.

These individuals began to tell us that we could have anything we wanted if we had enough faith. They would quote scriptures left and right and made it sound incredibly fantastic. It was awesome, we could be rich, we could have the cars we wanted, just ask God. He will give it to you. “You have not because you ask not…” or God’s word says that if you ask anything in my name you will receive it. You have power, you rebuke the devil and he will flee from you, so guess what? I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Things began to go downhill for the store. There would be people who would come in the store and tell us that if we had the faith God was going to give you $100,000. You gotta have enough faith, you are not believing God enough, you are not doing this enough. Not enough, not enough, not enough, over and over this was told to us. Meanwhile, Connie’s health was deteriorating due to the stress of keeping this business open. We poured our heart out to God, please save the store. The attitude of the prayers was not God Your will be done, whatever that might be. No, the prayers were Keep the store open in the name of Jesus. Devil I bind you, devil get away, I will not allow you devil…….do you see something here? I, personally, began to talk to the devil more that I communed and conversed with my Savior. We kept on. We attended revivals of fellow believers determined to have enough faith for God to give them anything they wanted.

During this time, members of Chris’s family were members of a church that was facing a lot of turmoil. This turmoil left the church fractured, injured, which in turn fractured and injured individuals involved, top this off with having to face closing the store in which God had called this family to in the first place. This was a sad time in our lives. I cannot speak for them all personally, but for me, with the mindset that I kept at that time, I felt that I was not good enough. I had done all I knew to do, and still lacked the faith to keep the store opened or to be healed or to have all of the things I had told God that I wanted in His Son’s name.

Do you see the fallacy of my thought process or heart strings? We had gotten caught up in what fellow brothers and sisters in Christ were telling, even if they had the best of intentions. We knew that was what the scriptures told us, but we no longer went to God in prayer about serving Him. It was all about what God was going to do for us. There was a lot of family turmoil. We were broken and remained that way for a long time, and still deal with that today.

I do not remember when this happened, but there had come a time in my own life that I was still hanging on to having enough faith to get God to do things for me. I was in the midst of praying and asking and asking when in what I consider to be an audible voice, “I do not serve you, You serve me. I am not a genie in the bottle.” This stopped me dead in my tracks. Scriptures that I had not thought about or placed into context with what I was hearing began to play in my mind. God has given us all a measure of faith, Romans 12:3. Faith the size of a grain of mustard seed can move mountains. Do you not think that what I have given you will suffice? Is it a possibility that me saying no was not about how much faith you have?

Oh, you mean No is an answer too? You see, we had not, not because we did not ask, but I had failed to go on and read the remainder of that scripture. You have not because you have not asked, and even at that, your motives are wrong. You are not concerned about serving Me, child. You are concerned with getting what you want. You have lost sight of me being your first love. You have lost sight of the fact that there are many lost and hurting people who are in need of knowing Me. You have been so caught up in worrying about being enough that you lost sight of “It Is Finished”. What part are you not understanding? It is finished, we no longer have to be good enough. You are working for something you do not have to work for. My love is a gift and my love is complete.