Seeking God's Will:
The Divine Economy of Generosity
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reveals the very heart of the Father through His teaching on asking, seeking, and knocking. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you," He tells the gathered crowd. These words offer not merely a strategy for prayer but a profound insight into the nature of God Himself - a God whose defining characteristic is generous love.
When we approach the Father in prayer, we approach One who delights in giving good gifts to His children. Jesus makes this clear with His illustrative question: "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?" The comparison between earthly parents, flawed though they may be, and our perfect heavenly Father serves to emphasize God's surpassing goodness. If we, in our imperfection, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! This teaching reveals a God who is not distant or stingy, but intimately concerned with our needs and joyfully responsive to our petitions. We need to learn this type of generosity.
Yet this promise raises an important question for our spiritual lives: How can we discern whether we are truly seeking God's will or merely our own desires when we pray? The answer lies partly in Jesus's concluding instruction: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Our prayers are properly aligned with God's will when they flow from hearts that seek not only our own good but the good of others - when they emerge from souls that have been transformed by divine generosity. When we pray with the Heart of God as our guide, our desires gradually conform to God's desires, and our asking becomes an extension of His giving nature.
This divine economy of generosity invites our participation. We are called not merely to receive God's goodness but to become channels of it. Through prayer, we approach the wellspring of all generosity, allowing ourselves to be filled so that we might pour out that same generosity upon others. In this way, prayer is not merely a private time between the soul and God but a life-changing encounter that equips us to imitate the Father's liberality in our relationships with others. When we truly participate in prayer as Jesus teaches, we become more like the God to whom we pray - generous, responsive, and good.
As we reflect on these teachings, let us bring our deepest desires before the Lord today, trusting in His perfect response. But let us also examine our hearts: Do our prayers reflect a spirit of generosity? Are we asking not only for ourselves but for the good of others? Do our petitions align with the Heart of God? By bringing such questions to our prayer life, we allow the Father to purify our intentions and transform our desires. And as we grow in this practice, we find ourselves becoming living testimonies to the truth Jesus proclaims: that at the center of all reality is a God of boundless generosity, inviting us to ask, to seek, and to knock—not so that we might simply receive, but so that we might become givers ourselves, imitating the divine generosity that sustains all creation.
In this life try to always be a GIVER, not a TAKER.
©2025 James Dacey Jr.
