What Are You Asking For? Lessons From Job and the Man at the Gate

In the raging stillness...

In Acts 3, we meet a man who had never walked. Every day, friends carried him to the temple gate, where he begged for money. That was his frame of reference. He had no categories for anything greater. If he was going to survive another day, silver and gold were the only answers he could imagine.

Peter and John stopped. And when the man asked for coins, Peter answered, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). Whether strength flooded his legs before he stood, or he chose to rise first and only then felt it, we cannot know. It is one of those moments that makes you pause: did healing precede obedience, or did obedience unlock the healing? What is clear is that he came asking for what he thought would keep him alive, and God gave him what he truly needed.

The Contrast With Job

Now hold that image against Job. Job had everything, family, wealth, reputation, and it was all stripped away. If anyone had reason to cry out for silver and gold, it was him. If anyone had reason to beg for restoration of possessions, it was him. But Job’s deepest anguish was not the loss of property or comfort. It was the silence of God.

“Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat!” (Job 23:3). Job did not plead for wealth. He pled for presence. His heart ached not for what God could give, but for God Himself.

Do you feel the contrast? The lame man asked for money because that was all he knew. Job asked for God because he had tasted everything else and knew it was nothing without Him.

The Real Question

That leaves us with a hard question: what are you asking for? Are your prayers centered on what you believe will sustain you today, comfort, provision, stability, control? Or do they press deeper, like Job, into the heart of God Himself?

We live in a world that teaches us to settle for silver and gold; a little more money, a little more security, a little more recognition. But those things cannot make the lame walk. They cannot quiet the ache of loss. They cannot restore a soul. Only God Himself can.

The Beauty of Faith and Power

I cannot stop thinking about that moment at the temple gate. Did the man feel strength first, or did he move first? Did healing rush in before he obeyed, or was it obedience that opened the door to healing? Either way, the miracle was not in the silver or the gold. The miracle was in the power of God meeting the faith of a desperate man.

And maybe that is the point. We ask for what we know. God gives us what we actually need. The gap between those two is where His glory shows up.

The Gift of Community

This truth came alive for me this morning as I sat around a table with leaders in the Twin Cities, digging into Acts together. It is in those conversations, where iron sharpens iron and others point out what I never noticed, that Scripture feels new again, even after a lifetime of reading it. If you do not have people in your life who dig deep into the Word with you, you are missing one of the greatest gifts of being a Christian.

The Bottom Line: What are you asking for?

Job teaches us that nothing compares to God’s presence. The lame man shows us how easily we settle for less. Peter’s words remind us that the world does not need more silver and gold; it needs more people who have the courage to say, “What I do have I give you… rise up and walk.”

So what are you asking for? The temporary relief that looks like silver and gold, or the eternal sustenance that comes from God Himself?