Last week I had the amazing opportunity to meet one of my favorite ministers, Kevin L A Ewing and his wife Dedre Ewing. I’d spent the day thinking about what I would ask him if given the chance, and yet here I was, in a queue to speak with him after his sermon, and didn’t know what to say.
What was my most pressing need? What was I still struggling with? What could this man of God help me make sense of? Well, when it was finally my turn I asked him something important, but I didn’t have the courage to ask about my most pressing need.
This inability to articulate what I wanted reminds me of instances in the Bible where prophets ask, what shall I give you? (2 Kings 2:9). Even God asks Solomon something similar (1 Kings 3:5).
Whenever I stumble on this question in the Bible, I ask myself if I would be ready with an answer, or if I would be like the Shunammite woman and say, who me? I’m fine. All my needs are met. Don’t worry about me.
2 Kings 4:11-17
And it happened one day that he came there, and he turned in to the upper room and lay down there. Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite woman.” When he had called her, she stood before him. And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘Look, you have been concerned for us with all this care. What can I do for you? Do you want me to speak on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’ ”
She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”
So he said, “What then is to be done for her?”
And Gehazi answered, “Actually, she has no son, and her husband is old.”
So he said, “Call her.” When he had called her, she stood in the doorway. Then he said, “About this time next year you shall embrace a son.”
And she said, “No, my lord. Man of God, do not lie to your maidservant!”
But the woman conceived, and bore a son when the appointed time had come, of which Elisha had told her.
It’s easy as women to bury away our fragile, delicate desires deep in our hearts and focus on the needs and desires of others. But, remember, God doesn’t just want to supply our needs, he wants for us to have more than enough. God is not just a need-supplier, He is a gift giver, and He wants to give His children gifts that we actually want.
So, if God were to appear to you today as He did to Solomon and pose this question: “Ask! What shall I give you?” Would you have an answer?
Well, get that answer ready because the Bible says, no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly (Psalm 84:11). Shyness is so yesterday. Name it, and then go to your prayer room and make sure you tell the One who loves to give good gifts exactly what you want.
