We learn from the Lord’s letter to the assembly in Laodicea that they were saying, “I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17). They needed nothing, so they said; they had it all! Well, almost—we learn that the Lord was at the door, knocking to enter in and have fellowship with them. That, for sure, they did not have. So sad. They thought they needed nothing while they lacked in everything spiritual.

I would have been very curious to know what their prayer meetings were looking like. Well, if they had a prayer meeting at all! What can one who needs nothing ask for anyway? But is it possible that, without knowing it, we do the same today? Do we feel we have all we need? Are we seeing the needs? Do we feel our needs? Do we know them? The one who needs nothing, asks nothing, and gets nothing! Maybe this is the simple answer to the state of our prayer life, individually, in our families, and collectively. What a loss it is for us! Not only are we staying in our blindness towards our and others’ needs, but we stay in our poverty because we do not ask.

In the book of Chronicles we read of a man who saw his needs and went in simple dependent faith to God concerning them. His prayer was very simple, but complete: “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” The meaning of his name, Jabez, is “sorrow” or “pain.” He took it to heart to hear “pain” every time his name was called. So he asked for the exact opposite! He did not seek to fix the problem by his own efforts, but he asked God. The answer was as simple and complete: “So God granted him what he requested” (1 Chr. 4:9–10).

That is it! He asked, he believed, and he obtained. Let us ask—and ask to see the needs, especially the spiritual ones—and, believing, we will receive! It will be for our spiritual growth and joy.