Daily Devotionals

Bowen's Daily Meditations

Devotional: January 20th

"Ask, and it shall be given you." - Luke 11:9.

This is a very defective world. Everybody says so. We have here only the rudiments of things. There is beauty and there is blessing; but only in fragments. A great deal has been done to make man’s condition agreeable; and a great deal left undone. There is health; but it does not endure. Strength; but it is evanescent. Rain in its season; but not invariable. Fruits; but they sometimes fail. Friends; but they are called away. Comforts; but we are liable to lose them. Wealth; but it takes wings. Objects of interest; but they lose their novelty. Incompleteness is the great characteristic of this world. There is no hope without disappointments; no acquisition without loss; no joy without interruption; no day without night. The consequence is, that we hear endless murmuring and complaining; much of it referring to God, who has given such scintillations of his goodness, only to make the general darkness more oppressive; such specimens of his power to bless, while he has left the world in such an unfinished condition, left such large unblessed gaps in life.

" Ask, and it shall be given you," is the reply of God. " I have given you half; the other half is in my hand. You build a house, and one stone is wanting to complete it; you search everywhere, and are angry because you find it not. It is with me; I have kept it purposely, that your house may not be built without me. You build a ship -, but the rudder is not forthcoming. I have kept it, that you may ask and receive, and discover that the whole is my gift. You find a book, but there is a chapter wanting, without which all is unintelligible. One blessing I have kept back, that you might know who gave the rest, and seek him." But man prefers to blame God for the privation, rather than to seek God for its removal. Let man know, then, that he is responsible for what is defective in his condition.

Ask in the right quarter, and it shall be given you. There is much asking. Men will ask of those, even, whom they despise. They spend their lives in asking; even the proudest, even an emperor, does so. But they are intensely loth to ask of God.

Ask in the right way. If you were asking a man to give you a cup of water, you would ask in the way that would please him. Let God prescribe how we shall ask him.

Ask for the most essential gifts first. Men on a wreck should ask for a sail, not for an embroidered garment.

Ask for regulated tastes and desires. This one gift will cut oft’ at once a thousand occasions of murmuring.

Ask with importunity.

Ask in faith.

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