Knock on Wood.

Is anybody else just a little bit confused by the phrase "Knock on wood!"? I heard someone say it the other day and I was thinking to myself "What does that even mean!?!"

While I am sure I could Google it and get an answer, I don't care enough to do that.

If any of you want to do that and let me know....thanks :)

But seriously, knock on wood?

As if that somehow can prolong your good "luck", good health, the good behavior of your children, the success in your business?

Do people actually say it and think it means anything? Is there supposed to be some kind of power in it?

I feel so confused.

Anyway.

The other day I was with someone and we were driving around looking at houses when we came around the corner and there before me were SWEET front doors.

Like, really cool. Really bold.

In what was, I am sure, an excessively exuberant display of emotion I was like "LOOK AT THOSE DOORS!!" Naturally, the only thing they could ask was "Do you like doors?"

Ha.

Yes. I love doors. 

Why? Because doors are on houses, for one (and I have an un-hidden love relationship with houses), and because doors lead you somewhere. That's the only way I know how to say it. They take you from somewhere you are to somewhere else. And sometimes you never know what is on the other side of that door. It's like a little surprise.

Very cool.

Oh look. Here are some doors I have loved over the years.

Christmas doors at Al and Ella's.

I want to know what life is like to live behind that door...

I should probably put curtains around my doors...

Ever since the Exodus I have had a crush on red doors...

I have tried to break into a few doors in my day with help from a few friends...

Hand-carved doors are the COOLEST...

A door with a handle that is curly like my hair.

So, I have to tell you. I have been praying like crazy lately. And not only have I been praying, but I have been praying ridiculous prayers.

Seriously. Praying things, asking for things that are so bold, so out of left field, so impossible, so audacious it's almost....almost...brazen, I feel sometimes.

Yet, there I proceed. Unashamedly asking for the most ridiculous turn of events to take place.

And you know what?

It's happening.

I know. I can hardly believe it either.

For instance. A handful of months ago I was thinking about a certain business move, unsure of whether it would be wise, whether I even wanted it in the first place. And so I said to the Lord, "Jesus, if you want me to be involved in XYZ, I want THEM to contact ME."

And that was it. I didn't write any emails. I made no phone calls. I left it as it is.

And then one day, out of nowhere....they emailed ME.

Whoa!

But that's not even all, Wolfies.

Two months later they called AGAIN. About something unrelated, yet another avenue that I feel the Lord wants me to walk down.

I mean, seriously, if the only move I ever made was saying "God, have them call me if you want me there" and they called me, I feel like that is a pretty clear answer about whether I should proceed or not.

This situation was just like fuel for the fire, let me tell you.

If God can do that, I keep thinking, what else can he do??

What else does he WANT to do?

Because that's what it boils down to, babies. Psalm 135:6 says "The Lord does whatever pleases him."

When he answers those prayers, it's because he wants to. He delights to. It progresses his will.

Needless to say, my brazen prayer life is marching on, unhindered. 

But since I have been mincing no words with God lately, I have felt it was necessary to draw a line in the sand to keep me reverent, to keep me aware of my gloriously and intensely subordinate position in this relationship with Him, so as not to think that I am ever in a role that can make demands upon God. Basically what that means is I am making it more and more of practice to pray face down.

Well. With my face on the floor is a little more accurate of a picture.

And in that posture the other day, there I was, curled up in the fetal position, face down.

Making my outlandish requests.

And whether it was the effects of my morning coffee finally reaching the surface or something else entirely, I noticed that my hand was tapping. It was balled up in a fist....almost like it was....knocking. 

It caught me off guard a bit and my mind immediately flew to that passage in Luke 11. 

"Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.“Which of you fathers, if your son asks fora fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion  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 11:5-11)

Almost as if my body knew a truth of the gospel my mind was not attentive to, there I was: knocking on the door of heaven.

In need of a friend, in need of food, in need of provision, in need of the radical power of the Holy Spirit, whatever it was I was requesting at that moment, my heart was whispering it to God, and my hand was knocking on his door.

Hmmmm....

Knocking on wood, might it be?

I know it. You know it. I am crazy.

But there on the floor all of this madness fit together in my brain like a hand fits into a velvet glove.

All of the sudden it all makes sense!

"Knocking on wood" will help you nothing. Unless it's the wood of heaven's door you keep persistently begging to be let into.

Remember the persistent widow? I love that it says she "Kept coming..." (Luke 18:3) And why did she receive what she asked for? It was not because the judge liked her, feared God, or cared about men. It was because she continued to do what she started out by doing...and she did it again...and again...and again.

She kept coming.
She kept knocking.

See. Sometimes I am afraid to pray for big things. Because like all of those cool doors, I don't know what's on the other side of them.

And what if I don't want to know? What if I don't want to the answer? Or even more likely---what if the door never gets opened?

Or sometimes I feel like I am being a pest. "Um...hi.....again.....I still need you to answer this prayer..."

Listen, I don't know much about the world and all the comings and goings of God, but this is what I do know: If we ask for something....and ask for something....and keep asking for something. IF IT IS GOOD, and IF IT PLEASES GOD...then we will receive it as a good gift from his hand.

And us receiving good gifts from him also pleases him.

Because he is God and he is awesome and selfless like that.

So pray, dear ones. Pray for your will to conform to His. Pray for you to want what pleases him; let your requests be things that speak of God and his Kingdom. You are not speaking to an idol carved out of an inanimate object; to a figure that has no power.

No. We pray to the One who can make things happen.

Who can make ridiculous things happen. 

Pray.

Pray with your face down or your eyes looking up expectantly.

Pray in the quietness of your heart or in the boldness of fists that bash into the ground.

But pray. And keep praying. Over and over again. And over again still. Keep knocking on the wooden door of heaven, even if you feel like if you pray any longer your knuckles might start to bleed.

Keep going. Keep going.

"Knock on wood," you could say.

You never know what God might have behind that door.