MacDonald: ask to receive

Tuesday, October 29, 2019
    Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885
Meditation:
    This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
    —1 John 5:14-15 (NIV)
Quotation:
    [Continued from yesterday]
    Hunger may drive the runaway child home, and he may or may not be fed at home; but he needs his mother more than his dinner. Communion with God is the one need of the soul beyond all other need; prayer is the beginning of that communion, and some need is the motive of that prayer... So begins a communion, a talking with God, a coming-to-one with Him, which is the sole end of prayer, yea, of existence itself in its infinite phases. We must ask that we may receive; but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lower needs, is not God’s end in making us pray, for He could give us everything without that: to bring His child to His knee, God withholds that man may ask.
    ... George MacDonald (1824-1905), “The Word of Jesus on Prayer”, in Unspoken Sermons, Second Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1886, p. 72-73 (see the book)
    See also 1 John 5:14-15; Ps. 73:28; Mark 11:24-25; John 4:32-34
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, You show me that all good things come from You. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt    Jonah    Ruth