Father Knows Before You Ask

Jesus never once told anybody to stop asking. He told them to stop explaining.

Jesus removes the case. Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. And notice he is not saying stop asking, because the very next words out of his mouth are a model prayer full of asking. He has just described people who think they shall be heard for their much speaking, and he is separating two things we routinely confuse: informing God, which is unnecessary, and asking him, which he then teaches at length. The prayer he gives as the alternative is worth measuring. It is about seventy words. Daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance. No preamble, no reasoning, nothing explaining to God why the request is justified. It reads like something said by a person who assumed they were already known. So pray the shortest honest prayer you have prayed in a month. One sentence, the thing named plainly rather than dressed up: the job, the marriage, the fear. Then stop talking and stay in the quiet for a minute afterwards. He knew it before you said it. He still wanted it said.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 353 is Where Is the Lamb (Genesis 22:8).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna