Day 21. Good Things from God
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"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children — how much more shall your Father who is in Heaven, give good things to those who ask him." Matthew 7:11
No father will answer his hungry child's cry for bread — with a stone; or give the child a serpent — if he asks for a fish. Even sinful parents have in their hearts, something of the image of God's own fatherhood. The argument is from the less to the greater. If a true earthly father, with all his imperfection, will not mock a child's cry, but will respond lovingly — then how much more will our Father in Heaven do for us?
"How much more?" is a question none can answer. We can only say as much more — as the heavenly Father is more loving, and wiser, and more able to give, than is the earthly father. Yet we must explain this promise also by other scriptures. The gate of prayer is set very wide open in this verse — yet those who would enter must come in the right way and seek "good" things.
While no one who asks for bread will receive a stone — so neither will one who asks for a stone receive a stone. And many times do we come to God, pleading with Him to let us have a stone! Of course we imagine it is bread, and that it will be food to us. It is some earthly thing, some gift of honour or pleasure, some achievement of ambition, some object of heart desire. It looks like bread to our deluded vision. But God knows it is only a cold stone, that it would leave us starving if we were to receive it; and He loves us too well to listen to our piteous cries for it, or to be moved by our earnestness or our tears to give it to us. When we ask for a stone — He will give us bread.
Thus it is that many requests for earthly things are not granted. Yet the prayers are not unanswered. Instead of the stone we wish — God gives us the bread we need! We do not always know what is bread — and what is a stone. We must leave to God, the final decision in all our prayers!
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