Ask, Seek, Knock
By the end of the summer of 2020, after months of being confined to my home, removed from the relationships I live in every single day, I began to feel an ache around many of my long distance friendships. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I was feeling. Sitting on the edge of my husband’s side of the bed with my elbows perched on my knees, I did my best to explain. “I think you should go see Emilie,” he said.
My friend Emilie, my soul sister—she’s a wildflower married to a bolt of lightning. I’ve never spent any time in their presence that hasn’t resulted in the veil of heaven being pulled back a little more.
My trip fell in September, and I chose to stay for a week, sharing the rhythms of their life, working half days remotely and soaking up the quietness and beauty of a life cultivated by Emilie. I used the office where her husband did his writing at the time, a rustic shed in the backyard with a space heater to take the edge off of the early winter weather.
As the days passed, I found myself longing for two things I witnessed in their life: a community of believers that actually functioned like a family every day of the week, and a sweet little family of their own flesh and blood. I took it all as a sign of what the Lord does and what he wants to do in my life, too.
On Sunday, we went to a neighbor’s house for church. In a circle in the living room, we sang together, listened to God’s voice, and interceded for one another about the things going on in our lives. I didn’t say anything about infertility or how I looked forward to gathering again with our own little corner of the church. But God saw me.
As things were wrapping up, a few of us gathered around to pray for someone who had suffered a concussion that week. We laid hands on him and asked for healing. When I opened my eyes, a young man I’d not been introduced to looked at me, saying, “To you, ‘Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.’—and also, what Eli said to Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, ‘Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.’”
When we got back to their house, I read 1 Samuel 1. I didn’t recall having read it before. Hannah had been praying for a child. In fact, she’d been asking, seeking, and knocking so desperately that Eli the priest rebuked her for her apparent drunkenness. She wasn’t drunk, though, but desperately offering herself and any future child to the Lord.
Immediately upon hearing the blessing from the priest, Hannah was no longer troubled. She “went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.” The next morning, they rose early and worshiped. “And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, ‘I have asked for him from the Lord.’”
The words, “in due time” leapt off the page at me. It seemed God was saying yes to my desire to have a family—a yes to both longings: a child of my body, and a life filled more and more with the discipleship of spiritual children. Although it was a yes, I felt in my heart that this “due time” could be any amount of time. It could be a really long time, but I had been charged in the meantime to ask, seek, and knock every day until then—and every day after.
As I have asked, sought, and knocked, He has continued to provide direction, new things to focus on, and new ways to grow. I believe that every moment our Father withholds a desire of my heart is a day in which he is pursuing me to satisfy an even deeper one for a more pure relationship with Him.
Psalm 1 promises that one who meditates on God’s law day and night will become “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.” In following the call to seek Him, I’ve been planted by streams of water. My roots are getting deeper, my leaves are deep green and supple, and I will yield fruit “in due time.”
