If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13)

This week, as part of The Holy Spirit: Presence, Power and Purpose, we’re looking at, listening to, Luke 11:5-13 (and it wouldn’t hurt to start with verse 1).

Jesus’s teaching here on the Holy Spirit – “how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” – is embedded in a larger context of prayer.  Luke 11 begins with Jesus praying.  Next, he responds to his disciples’ request that he teach them how to pray by giving them the Lord’s Prayer (verses 1-4).  He then goes on to tell a story about a man being awakened in the middle of the night by a needy neighbor (verses 5-8), then proceeds to say, “Ask … seek … knock,” attaching to each verb a promise, “you will be given … you will find … the door will be opened.”  He ends with something of a rhetorical question: “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish would give him a snake … or a scorpion instead of an egg?”

A lot of prayer is about asking.  But that asking will be shaped and directed according to who we think we’re asking.  Is God a maze-master: unless you run the maze absolutely perfectly, no cheese for you?  Do we have to get God’s attention, persuade God to look our way?

Or do we picture God as our Divine Butler, always at our beck and call?  Or a tyrant who must be placated and “managed” lest he send Bad Things our way?  Must we use high-falutin’ holy language when we pray: O eternal, infinite Perfection of Being, who dwellest on high in incomprehensible Holiness …”

Nah, says Jesus.  Pray like this: Our Father.  Not your earthly dad, but the kind of loving, generous, compassionate, providing and protecting father all earthly dads are supposed to be, yet none are.  Jesus continues: This God who is your Father is like this: two neighbors, one tucked in for the night, the other interrupted by an unexpected guest and a bare cupboard.  C’mon, says Jesus: if you were that tucked-in neighbor, even you would get up and give your neighbor some food, even if only so you could get back to sleep.  Don’t you think GOD is more inclined to be asked, and to help, then you are?

And notice this: when Jesus tells this little story, he doesn’t use the word “neighbor”; he uses the word “friend.”

So ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, keep pounding on the door.  And what’s the best thing to ask for?  What do we need, even more than good prayer patterns, daily (and nightly) bread?

The Holy Spirit.  Because the Spirit is God himself, the very same Spirit present and working in and through Jesus, the Spirit who is God himself taking up residence in you, Jesus no longer as an example outside but the very life of God coming to dwell within you.

And if you ask this Father, this Friend, this Giver, this Opener of Doors, to give you the Holy Spirit, how do you think the God described in these verses will respond?

How … much … more … will he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!

Ask your Father to give you his Holy Spirit.  Ask, today, tomorrow, and keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.