Daily Manna · Day 353 · December 19
Father Knows Before You Ask
“For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
If God already knows what you need, why ask Him at all? Jesus answers that question in Matthew 6, and His answer frees you from a great deal of explaining.
He had just warned against praying like the heathen, who "think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." Then He says, "your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him." That takes away the need to argue your case before God. Yet Jesus is not telling anyone to stop asking, because the very next words out of His mouth are a model prayer full of requests. He is separating two things we often mix up. One is informing God, which is never needed. The other is asking Him, which He goes on to teach.
The prayer He gives is worth measuring. It is short enough to say in well under a minute. It asks for daily bread, for forgiveness, and to be delivered from evil. It has no warm-up and no explanations, and it never tells God why the request is fair. It sounds like the prayer of someone who knows they are already known. So pray the shortest honest prayer you have prayed in a month: one sentence, with the thing named plainly, whether it is the job, the marriage or the fear. Then stop talking and stay quiet for a minute afterwards. Your Father knew it before you said it, and He still wanted to hear you say it.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 353 is Where Is the Lamb (Genesis 22:8).