Withholding good things...

I know a woman who is very afraid of running out of money.  She is old.  She is facing medical issues... she has over three million dollars.  Will she run out of money before her life is over?  Who knows... we seem to create what we fear, so my guess is, she will die penniless.  Perhaps it would be the best thing for her.  The thing is, while she clings to what she has in fear of her future woes, her children muddle through their own very current woes unaided... sad.

Matthew 7:11 says, If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!" 

Hmmm, do we know how to give good gifts to our children?  In context Matthew 7:7-11 says this:

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"

The assumption there is that we know how to give good gifts to our children.  If my child asked me for bread.  I would buy bread.  It's true!  I would not buy a stone instead.  But in our society where we live only one generation at a time, we are more likely to miss the point.  If we do in this generation what has been done in the last three will there be any bread for our children?

I think it is important to know what a good gift is.  It might be a loaf of bread but perhaps it is land that is clean, rich and fertile that is ready for a strong crop of wheat to grow so that our children have something to bake into bread.

Maybe it's a clean ocean, one that has been fished with our children in mind.  Leaving all we can behind so that there will be fish for many generations to come.  

Perhaps this isn't the point.  Jesus is begging us to ask Him.  For what exactly?  Is this a carte blanche to ask and receive anything I want? Hmmm, I'm thinking of James 4:3 where it says,

"You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."

Which pleasures?  Isn't eating bread also a pleasure? When are we withholding bad things and when are we withholding good things from our children? Does God withhold good things? Or... hmmm If God never withholds good things from His children... what are those good things?  Food?  Clothing?  or is it peace, hope, and rest?  

Why does He ask us to ask? to knock? to seek?I wonder if He is egging us on to ask for today's things... bread and fish.  Like the Lord's prayer, give us this day our daily bread.  I wonder... 

I know many who say, "ask for the big things"... great things like houses, wealth and prosperity.  But sometimes I feel more like a tiny bird... waiting for just the next morsel, perhaps He asking for something more intimate and personal.  Like the next bite... the next breath.  Maybe...