"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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened."

Let's be honest for a moment. Some of us have stopped asking God for things. Not because we don't believe He exists, but because we're not sure He's listening. Or worse, we're not sure He cares the way we thought He did.

Maybe you prayed for that job promotion. You were faithful, you tithed, you served, you did everything right. The position went to someone else. Maybe you prayed for healing, and the cancer came back. You prayed for your marriage to be restored, and the papers were still filed. You prayed for your child to come home, and they're still running.

I just want you to know...I've been there too. I prayed for my back to be healed, for my daughter to no longer be in pain, and for my brother in law not die from cancer. I prayed but did not get what I was asking for. And somewhere in that process, many of us have moved from expectation in our prayers to resignation from them. We've shifted from "God will provide" to "God might provide" to "Why bother asking?"

Here's what I need you to know right now. The problem isn't that God hasn't answered. The problem is we've confused what we want with what's actually good.

Think about it just like a farmer who plants seed in spring. He doesn't dig up the soil every day to check if something's growing. He trusts the process because he understands that growth happens underground before it ever breaks through the surface. So much of what God is doing in your life is happening beneath the soil of your circumstances. You can't see it yet, but that doesn't mean nothing is happening.

Jesus opens Matthew 7:7 with an incredible promise. Ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened. But we read that verse and think, "Well, I asked. I sought. I knocked. And nothing happened." So we stop.

But the real question we need to wrestle with is this: Does God really give good things to those who ask, or is the promise conditional on some spiritual formula we haven't mastered? Are we doing something wrong?
The answer might surprise you. God isn't withholding because you've failed some test. He's not playing hide and seek with His blessings. The issue isn't His faithfulness. The issue is our definition of "good."

We've been asking God for what feels good rather than trusting Him to give what truly is good. And there's a massive difference between the two.

Tomorrow we'll discover something in the original language that changes everything about how we approach this promise. Because Jesus wasn't telling us to ask once and wait. He was calling us to something far more persistent and transformative.

Write down one prayer you've given up on. Don't pray it yet. Just write it down and acknowledge that you've stopped bringing it to God. We'll come back to this at the end of the week.