Ask For What You Need by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

About four years ago, when The Village was getting ready to launch weekly worship and open up for business (the church business) at our original location over at Monroe and Central, a small team of dedicated servant leaders and I were working hard to get everything ready. There were 22 people on the Launch Team working on seven different ministry teams just to get our wonderful small church off the ground. We were spread pretty thin. I was still managing the finances. Thankfully, the UCC Association was writing our checks at the time, but I had to do the day to day work with the finances. I was doing lots of fund raising at the time, and had been for about 18 months, asking for people to invest in this great start up. So there were lots of donations to track. We had some grant money and because we were about to launch we were burning through money like crazy. And I was trying to keep track of all of that on these excel spread sheets.

Two things you need to know about me: 1) I am a big picture person. So details are not my thing. I am not the person you want handling the financial details of your church. I can do it, but I’m not good at it. 2) I was busy enough trying to be the pastor, doing the things you want your pastor to do, and I simply did not have time to be the office manager/bookkeeper/bill payer. 

I have a vivid memory of my head in my hands sitting in my desk right around Christmas time after we launched in Oct 2009, head in hands, crying. I prayed to God: “Please, I don’t have money to pay an office manager. I know that in other church plant situations that people walk into a church and believe in the vision and they offer their gifts and their time. God, I need a servant leader who will work without pay, for awhile, as our office manager. Because soon I am going to lose my mind.” 

I knew I could not go on like this much longer or I would go crazy. I needed help. I had a prayer team for The Village at that time and I asked them to pray too. 

A week or two later, on a Sunday morning, a woman visited our church alone. She came up to me after the service and told me that she had been attending another new church start but her church was closing. She was looking for a new church and said she liked our church and thought she would like to make The Village her church home. She asked how she might help. She said she had experience running power point at her old church, (ok, that could be a helpful) that she had run a business, and I am really good at doing office work. (Bingo! and Hallelujah!)

An answer to prayer! That person was Shelly Savory. She is still with us today as our Office Manager. She worked for free for two years. She was happy to do it as her service to our community. Finally, in 2012 we were able to start paying her a tiny stipend for her very hard work each week. 

I am convinced that Shelly found her way to us because we prayed for her and she prayed for us. You see, she also needed a church home. She had never gone to church as a single person. She had gone through a divorce and it was hard for her to look for a church alone. She prayed that God would lead her to a church that would give her a family and we have been that church for her.  The Village is her family and she added her family to that family over the following years and vice versa. 

This is the message, perseverance in prayer does work. When we experience it, we need to name it and give thanks for it.  Our scripture for today (Luke 11:5-12 for those following along on the web) follows after the one from last week. Last week, we found Jesus’ disciples asking him how to pray. He gave them a model prayer that we know as the Lord’s prayer. Then he gave them a bit more instruction about how prayer works.

He talked about persistence.

^5-6 Then Jesus said, “Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don’t have a thing on hand.’

⁷ “The friend answers from his bed, ‘Don’t bother me. The door’s locked; my children are all down for the night; I can’t get up to give you anything.’

⁸ “But let me tell you, even if he won’t get up because he’s a friend, if you keep knocking and waking all the neighbors, he’ll finally get up and get you whatever you need.

Then Jesus gives the words that are perhaps most familiar:

⁹ “Here’s what I’m saying:

Ask and you’ll get;
Seek and you’ll find;
Knock and the door will open.

Then there is this kind of odd little bit about eggs and snakes and spiders:

^10-13 “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing—you’re at least decent to your own children. And don’t you think God who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask?”

I think Jesus says this to make a point that God wants to answer our prayers. God wants us to have what we need. Of course God wanted me to have help with paying the bills for The Village and doing the office tasks I am not suited to do. Of course God wanted Shelly to find a church home that would be a family for her. 

Ask and you will get it.  Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door will be opened.  This is what Jesus says happens when we pray. 

Now I know, some of you are out there asking the obvious question: why doesn’t God answer all of our prayers in the way we want them to be answered? I can’t tell you that. I may be a pastor, but I am still a human being. Some of these questions we won’t get an answer to in this life. Sometimes the answer to our prayer is “no,” or my least favorite “wait.” Often times, when I ask for one thing in prayer, God leads me down another path. It is not the path I thought I wanted, but God shows me something good in the new path, sometimes better than what I originally wanted. 

What is important is that we keep asking. We keep the communication open. God certainly can’t answer our prayers if we are not persistent in letting God know our needs. 

Theologian David Lose writes this: the Asking is what is central to prayer “Because it affirms our fundamental dependence on God. … When we ask God for something in prayer, we acknowledge both our need and God's goodness.” We need God.  That is what prayer is about.

When my prayer team and I prayed for an office manager and when Shelly prayed for a church we were all saying to God – “we can’t find these people and these things on our own. We need you to do your holy matchmaking. We need you to bring us together.” And God found a way to do that – because, after all, God is God.

When we pray, we are saying to God – we need your help. So I wonder – what about you? When has God answered your prayer? When did you seek something and find it because you prayed? When were you persistent in prayer, and in God’s time, you got your answer? 

Would anyone else like to share an example?  In worship, one of our members shared her story of surviving Stage IV Cancer through prayer.  Another member shared finding the Village from an hour away.  Still another found the love of her life down a path she never expected.  A teacher in the midst of contract negotiation, reminded us all of a truth even in the Rolling Stones music, you can’t always get what you want, but you do get what you need. 

One of the things that has been crucial for me is knowing that other people are praying with me. Remember I told you that I have a Prayer Team for The Village. These are folks, outside of the church, all across the country (some of who get our messages this way) that I could e mail (and I still can) when I need support for something going on with the planting of The Village. They are friends of mine who believe in the power of prayer and who are committed to our work here. I specifically asked them to pray with me when I was overwhelmed in those first few months of us launching. I asked them to pray specifically for an office manager who could take those responsibilities off my place. They did, and God sent us Shelly. 

So, I have an invitation for you today.  Remember the invitation from Jesus is this: “Ask and it will be given to you.”  But you have to ask, and be persistent.

Right now, think of something that you need in your life – something that you cannot make happen on your own – something that you can only do with God’s help. You need God to make this thing happen. 

Now, I’m going to give you a few minutes. You can pray about that thing. Or you can turn to one other person here. And ask them to pray for you. If you are comfortable praying out loud here together that would be great. But what would be even better would be this. Ask that person to pray for your thing over the coming days and weeks – and be persistent with you – as long as it takes until you get an answer to your prayer. Exchange phone numbers or e mails so you can text or do whatever works for you to keep in touch. This is a big commitment, I know and this is completely voluntary. But I invite you to consider doing this for one another. This is what it means to take our prayer to the next level, and to dig deeper as a community. 

So that is the invitation. Ask and it will be given. You can take some time to pray silently.  Or you can turn to someone near you and share with them what you are asking for and you can decide to be in this together and be persistent with one another, and keep in touch until you get an answer.   You can even do it on our Facebook or Blogger pages if you are not able to join us in person.  We love reaching beyond the corner of Conant and The Trail, whatever ways we can.