The Secret to Prayer: Ask, Seek, Knock: High School Lenten Reflection for Thursday, March 10, 2022

Ask. Seek. Knock. Jesus approaches us today through the Gospel of Matthew and says one of the most biblically famous lines that we will ever hear. One of the beautiful things about the Gospels are that the messages that we take from the Gospels can be interpreted in many ways of our lives, and they can serve a purpose in our own day to day lives.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law and the prophets.”

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Ask. Seek. Knock.

ask — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Jesus approaches us today through the Gospel of Matthew and says one of the most biblically famous lines that we will ever hear. One of the beautiful things about the Gospels are that the messages that we take from the Gospels can be interpreted in many ways of our lives, and they can serve a purpose in our own day to day lives.

Today, Jesus gathers His Disciples, and tells them “Ask and it will be given to you”, and “Knock and the door will be opened for you, and so famously says “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law of the prophets”. Wow. I am just astonished and captivated by Jesus tells us today. “Ask and it will be given to you”, “Knock and the door will be opened to you”.

These things sound really easy, just ask for this thing and I’ll get it, or ask God for anything I want, isn’t that was Jesus is saying? No. Jesus is simply just referring to this in a morally and righteous way. When He refers to asking and receiving, He is referring to Prayer.

The Powerful Asset of Prayer

Obviously we know that prayer is a powerful asset in our relationship with God, but what Jesus is trying to imply, for example, if you ask Him for forgiveness, then He will forgive you. If you truly mean, and truly mean to change your life to avoid sin. “Knock and the door will be open to you”.

Picture this. When you knock on a door, you expect someone to open the door, and welcome you into wherever you are with a smile and hospitable behavior. If we put this in a moral sense, we can picture ourselves knocking on Jesus’ door. If we knock on Jesus’ house, He will without a doubt answer, and then we are welcomed into His house, or “Heaven.”

Jesus wants us to knock on His door, He wants to welcome you into His Eternal Glory, and He wants you to come to Him, and then He will give you what you have asked for. Jesus wants us to go to Him whenever we need Him.

No matter the situation, Jesus is always there for us, and He will always lift us up. This doesn’t mean that if we Jesus for something, He won’t give it to us, but the only way to do that is if we go to Him, and ask Him on His doorstep, and Jesus notices when you go to Him. He points us in the right direction.

Jesus came to serve, and not be served, and was sent down by God to save the world from sin, which brings me to my next point. Often times, it can hard to treat others who we despise with love and compassion, we even hold grudges which can hard to let go of. In today’s world, we can find it hard to help those who we don’t like, or to love those who we despise. Jesus calls us to love today.

He calls us to have respect and compassion for people of any type, and He asks us to treat them just as we would want to be treated. I would want to be treated kindly by this person, so I am going to treat them with respect.

Jesus also says that we must live our enemies, and He was a prime example of this. When He was on the Cross, He asked God to forgive who had persecuted Him. Jesus even tells us that in order to love Him, you can’t have hate for your brother, or else that isn’t true love. Jesus is always calling us to love others, and to treat others just as if we were that person, and then will our lives change. And then, Jesus will notice. When The Father watches what you do in secret, your life will change forever.

— Julian Hernandez, Class of 2025

Other High School Lenten Reflections can be found on this website.