“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)

Let’s be honest. Most of us learned how to pray by asking God for what we wanted Him to do for us.

“God bless Mommy and Daddy.” “God, please make my kitty well.” “God, can you please get me a bike?”

You get the picture?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with saying to God essentially: “God, I want You to do this or that for me.”

After all, such a request is not entirely out of line in a relationship between a father and a child, is it?

As a father, I am more than willing to give my children what they want. But, if the only time they call on me is when they want something, that makes me sad, because I long to have them come to me for no reason other than to simply say: “I love you” or just to do something with me or spend time with me.

When our daughter Priya was away from home for nearly 6 years in South Korea, she could come home only once a year and for a few weeks at that. Priya has numerous friends in Canada that she would have loved to visit every time she came back. But she always made sure that at least two-thirds of her time was spent with us.

This made my heart glad, because she valued her relationship with us so much that she simply wanted to be with us. Sometimes we would travel together as a family when she was home, other times we would just stay at home…it did not matter, she simply wanted our company.

If I as an earthly father feel that way about my child, how much more does our heavenly Father desire us to come to Him, not just when we want Him to do something for us, but simply because we want to be with Him, because we want Him?

We value God more for who He is and not for what He has. We treasure His presence, and not just His presents. We seek His face over His hands.

In Luke 11, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray. He takes his time explaining to them what it means to pray to “Our Father.” Considering that God is addressed as Father only 3 times in the entire Old Testament, this was necessary teaching for the disciples who would have viewed it as revolutionary revelation.

After impressing upon them that God is a loving heavenly Father who gives His children what they need and want, He then declares that what the Father really desires for His children to receive is not anything that He has in His hands, but His Holy Spirit.

Since Holy Spirit is also God, the third Person of the Trinity, Jesus is really saying that God wants to give Himself to His children. And when we get Him, then we get all of Him, including what He has in His hands…wow!

He wants us to simply want Him and not focus on what we want Him to do for us.

What would you rather have? Just what He has in His Hands? Or All of Him?

The choice is obvious, isn’t it?