My son really wants a cat. About a million times a day, he asks in some way or other about getting a cat. Right now the answer is no. No cats. No matter how cute and cuddly they are. That doesn’t mean the answer will always be no, but it’s a solid no right now, and he knows it. Which is why, sometimes I find him incessantly asking about it a little… annoying.
The truth of the matter is the real reason I find it annoying is because I’m a sinner. Sometimes my preferences get in the way of my parenting. But God isn’t like that. He says, “Keep on asking, and you will be given what you ask for” (Matthew 7:7).
There’s an example of this in Genesis 18. The Lord tells Abraham that He’s going to check on Sodom and Gomorrah because He has “heard that the people… are extremely evil, and that everything they do is wicked” (Genesis 18:20). I imagine the Lord already knew all He needed to know about the people in Sodom and Gomorrah. But what follows is a teaching moment to help Abraham learn something he needed to know about God.
Abraham thinks over what he knows about Sodom and Gomorrah, and he asks, “Suppose you find fifty innocent people there within the city – will you still destroy it, and not spare it for their sakes? Surely you wouldn’t do such a thing, destroying the innocent with the guilty… Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” (Genesis 18:24)
The Lord hadn’t mentioned destroying the cities so I think we can infer that Abraham agrees that the people in Sodom and Gomorrah are in the wrong, that they deserve judgment, that destruction might even be an appropriate punishment. He knows God is the righteous Judge – he says so in v. 24. What I think he’s exploring are the depths of God’s mercy. How far is God willing to go in order to save the innocent?
The Lord says, “If I find fifty innocent people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake” (Genesis 18:26). Abraham then reconsiders – fifty might be a stretch. So he asks, How about forty-five, Lord? And the Lord says, Yes, I will spare the ungodly for the sake of forty-five innocents. Abraham thinks he’s being audacious. He gets bolder and bolder until finally he thinks even he has gone too far. If God spares sinners for the sake of less than ten people, it would be too much mercy.
The thing is, God never stops saying yes until Abraham stops asking.
Luke introduces one of Jesus’ parables in this way: “One day Jesus told his disciples a story to illustrate their need for constant prayer and to show them that they must never give up” (Luke 18:1). The story is of a godless judge who gives justice to a widow simply because he is tired of her asking. God is nothing like that judge – He says, Keep on asking. I want you to ask. I won’t get annoyed by your requests or tired of your persistence. I love it when you come boldly to my throne; I delight to give you mercy and grace (Hebrews 4:16).
I would love to give my son the kitten he keeps asking for; I just happen to know it’s not a good idea right now. That’s not hard for us to understand in our regular ‘visible’ life but we struggle to believe that it’s true in our ‘invisible’ life. If we long for something and our Father delays or declines granting it, we’re easily discouraged. Or we might quickly believe God doesn’t hear us, doesn’t care about us, doesn’t love us. But Jesus says, “If you parents know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). What a question! How much more? It’s a question we will spend a lifetime exploring. Like Abraham, like my son, let’s keep on asking and learn just how far He will go, “how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is” (Ephesians 3:18).