And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. – John 14:13-14
One of the biggest events of our year, at our little cabin in Minnesota’s swampland, occurred in late November. It was the arrival of the big Christmas catalog! Its arrival was bigger than Christmas to my five siblings and me.
Its pages were filled with colorful toys, dolls, wagons, trucks, and everything else children dream of having. We would pretend that it would all be under our meager tree. The pretending and expectation would vanish when reality set in on Christmas morning. Our folks could not afford all those wonderful toys, and we would be content with the one toy we might get, along with some new underclothes that we needed.
Every year, I dreamed of playing with the elaborate dollhouse that was pictured in the catalog on its own page. It was beautiful, full of exquisite miniature furniture and tiny dolls. There were tiny drapes over the windows, rugs on the floors, and doors that opened. If I could only have that, I thought, my life would be complete. I knew that Mother and Father could not afford it so I never asked for it.
One day, when I was a teenager, I revealed my longing to my mother, and she whirled around, astonished and disappointed. She exclaimed, “Why didn’t you ask for it? I didn’t know you wanted a dollhouse. We could have managed that!” I had assumed that because it was so wonderful, we probably could not afford it, but, too late, I found that was not the case.
How many times do we fail to ask the Lord for something because we assume that He already knows what we want, that He will not give it to us anyway, or that it is too much to ask for? Jesus told us to ask! Like a parent, it is the Lord’s pleasure to give us good things. When we bring requests from hearts that are consecrated to His perfect will, He will not disappoint us.