maybe, just maybe…….
there are no scorpions.
“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 for f a 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!”
I’ve had a strained relationship with this passage for awhile. When I was young, it seemed simple. Ask god boldly for what you want and god will give it to you. At least that’s what they said in church. But it just didn’t pan out that way in life. I asked. I didn’t get it. I asked for my first marriage to be healed. A noble request I thought. Surely an “egg” in the example above. I got an ugly and messy divorce. Surely a scorpion. What was the deal? Maybe my faith? Or maybe god? Maybe the scorpion came from the devil?
Who knew?
Eventually, I just didn’t care.
I spent the next ten years learning how to let go. Learning to live a life of surrender to whatever god had for me.
I got way more into “Not my will but thy will be done.”
and “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be unto me as you have said”
I decided that if god was good (and I was bargaining that whatever god was - it was good), this god knew better than I what agenda should play out in my life. I stopped doing much “asking boldly.”
This was a shift that was full of freedom. I no longer felt rage toward the god who seemed to be handing me scorpions. I no longer felt that I was in some kind of a war game with some sadistic devil. I no longer felt guilt and pressure to be more faithful and more bold in my requests. I was released from blame and had released god and the devil from blame as well.
But then, what to do with this story that Jesus hands me about asking and seeking and knocking?
Maybe – the story had just been presented all wrong. Maybe it’s not about whether or not this bad thing that happens in my life is god’s fault, or my fault, or some devil’s fault.
Maybe the story is putting forth that the thing that seems like a scorpion is really an egg.
If god is everything and everything is god. If god is in all, and through all and over all. Then maybe, just maybe…….
there are no scorpions.
Back to my marriage example. I prayed for my marriage to survive. It didn’t. At the time it felt like a scorpion. Guess what? It was an egg. I ended up with a man who was loving, and fun, and nourishing to my soul. Just the kind of “egg” I needed.
Maybe this verse is about trusting that whatever we are handed in life, no matter how poisonous or toxic or deadly it may appear to be is actually going to nourish and feed us in the long run. That takes a lot of trust, because many, many times the scorpion is really, really huge. And many, many times we don’t see the egg for a really, really long time.
But….
Whether we can see it or not, maybe that “scorpion” is the holy spirit, the divine energy that is moving to make us grow.
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