Imagine sitting at your favorite restaurant discussing investment possibilities with your spouse. You have already made a list of pros and cons. You studied the internet and asked some people you know for their ideas or advice. 

Then just before the waiter brings your check, Warren Buffett walks up to your table and says, “I couldn’t help but hear your conversation. Would you like to ask me what I think?” 

Warren Buffett isn’t perfect, but I bet you would hear him out! 

Now, consider this fact from Scripture: The God who spoke this world into being and is sovereign of its future has repeatedly said, “When you need something, ask me.” 

God wants our best

Paul was talking to the Corinthian church about the joy of giving what we have to help others. He said, “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). 

Usually, the subject of giving is emphasized in that passage, but there is more. Paul taught the church something important to consider about God’s nature. He said, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. . . . his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:8–9). 

We wrestle with our choices, doing our best to do the right thing, while our Father in heaven says, “Ask me. I want you to have my grace, and my will is that you abound in every good work.” God’s righteousness endures forever. God is incapable of wanting anything less than our very best, every time we ask him.  

When we take our choices to God and say, “We need your idea, your plan, your will,” we are asking for our best possible decision. As I often say, God doesn’t make suggestions. His answer is the answer. 

Paul told the Ephesians that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20). God wants to do even more than we know to ask for.

Hand God a blank slate

I was talking with a good friend last week when God opened up a floodgate of ideas. I had called hoping to encourage her through a tough time, and, instead, she became my counselor and a voice for God’s wisdom. 

I was struggling with a list of thoughts and ideas, none of which seemed to be materializing. Every idea I had seemed to be a vapor that drifted away. I told my friend that it seemed like I was staring at a blank slate with no real direction from God.  

That conversation led me to a new place in my prayers. 

I had been writing my ideas on that slate, and God seemed to be erasing each one. After that conversation, I just handed God the slate. 

I’d been submitting my ideas to God, which, in retrospect, wasn’t a bad idea, just not the best idea. I don’t want God to rank my ideas; I want God to author his ideas for me. 

God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known” (Jeremiah 33:3). After just a few days of prayer and time spent in Scripture while working on my Wisdom Matters entries, my blank slate has started to fill with ideas that I would not even have considered. I’m smiling even as I type those words. 

We have a great, great God. 

God said, “Ask me.”

I was writing a Wisdom Matters entry out of James 1:5. I love the book of James and have always loved this verse about wisdom: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” 

As I was writing I realized that the Holy God, Creator of all there is, has literally invited me into his very Presence, to sit at his feet and “ask him” whatever I want. He wants to spend that time with me. God wants us to “reason together” about the direction life should take. 

It struck me that I am privileged beyond what I can comprehend to have a relationship like that with God. My friend blessed my life by urging me to simply grow quiet and enjoy time with God. It is from that time that the rest of life is prospered. 

Jesus encouraged us to enjoy him

Jesus was speaking to his disciples when he said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).  

I am coming to a new understanding of what Jesus was saying in that verse. God wants to bless our lives, enrich our lives, and guide our lives. The best way for him to do that is for us to simply live what we know is the truth of his word.  

The best way to know God’s will is to adjust our lives to spend as much time enjoying the Lord as we possibly can. You will know you are in a good place with God when it seems like God’s presence is your favorite place to be. It is easy to “blank slate” our ideas to our holy God when we are fully aware of his great love and perfect guidance. 

It is from those moments we begin to realize that his thoughts are not ours because we realize his ideas are so much better than what we even knew to ask or imagine. 

Ask God

I hesitated to write this blog post because it was more personal than I usually try to write. But even this article was God’s idea. 

Someone reading these words today needs these words today. All of us reading these words will need these reminders someday. Life is full of distractions, and it is our daily choice to allow God to fill our lives instead. 

I’m so grateful that the Lord used my friend to help me hand a blank slate to the One who needed to control the content. I’m so grateful to have a blog post so my friend’s blessing can be shared with others.  

We have a great, great God who has invited all of us into his Presence to ask him for his wise counsel. 

I’m pretty sure Warren Buffett’s advice would be great. I’m absolutely certain that God’s advice is perfection. 

How quickly can you quiet your schedule and sit at his feet? 

God wants to spend time with you and has more to say than you can ask or imagine.