We have heard today’s reading quoted many times, I’m sure: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  We may do these things in our prayer and conversation, but sometimes the door doesn’t open or we don’t find what we are looking for.  In the end, it can lead to frustration, disappointment and diminished faith or hope.

Helen Keller is quoted as saying, “What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.”  Interesting perspective.  What if the door I am knocking on is the door to the deepest part of me?  What if what I am seeking is already in me?  What if what I am asking for has already been given to me?  People have said to me, “I just need more patience.”  I usually ask, “How do you know?  Have you even used what you’ve got?”

So often we are looking outside of ourselves for validation, for confirmation, for something to make my life better or more joyful or less stressful.  I wonder if what we are asking for, or seeking or knocking on are actually in some attic in our very being.  They are locked up in a place that no one really goes into.  It’s dark and dingy in there and full of stuff that is buried, locked away and never used.

Sometimes, the asking and seeking and knocking might just be the opportunity for us to enter more deeply into the place where we are least expecting to be lead - ourselves.  What would it be like to put our request out there, and then let God do what God does best - enter in and bring us new life?!  “Father, why have you abandoned me?”  He didn’t!  What was about to happen would be the most intimate journey for anyone to experience!  New life and resurrection were given!  It wasn’t a resuscitation!  It was a totally new life and transformation.  Might the same happen to us when we place our request out there in complete trust and humility?

People will say, “Be careful what you ask for.”  The asking is not the issue.  The issue becomes, can you and I stay open to the expansion of our life that we asked for?