What you seek

By Mia Pohlman

In a village of 2,000 people in western Germany, strangers helped me understand more deeply what Jesus means in Matthew 7:7 (NAB).

It goes like this: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you."

My family and I were in the village where our ancestors lived, before they came to America in the mid-1800s. We didn't have personal contacts there, but through research my mom had found the church my great-great-great-great-great grandpa attended. We found her maiden name in a stained glass window and were ready to leave.

As we pulled out of town, I noticed my mom's maiden name on a barber shop sign. We decided to get out, just to see if perhaps we were related to the owner.

The door was locked when we got to it. My parents are persistent people, however, and against my sister's and my own protests, they continued knocking. A man came to the door looking very confused, and through me and my sister's rudimentary German, we told him what we were doing.

Across the street, two teenage boys heard what was happening and came over, asking, "Are you from the U.S.A.?"

They translated between us and the barber, and then he got his phone and called the burgermeister -- the mayor -- of the town, telling us to follow him. A few minutes later, we were sitting in the burgermeister's kitchen, and he was showing us photos of our ancestors from his genealogy library, while his daughter translated.

Then he asked if we wanted to see the house our ancestor had built and meet our seventh cousins. So, we ended up riding through a village 15 kilometers east of the French border in the burgermeister's car with the burgermeister, listening to traditional German polka music.

God and people are good.

When we got to the home, four of our cousins were waiting outside to meet us. They welcomed us in, giving us a tour of the house. Then, they invited us for tea. It was one of the loveliest evenings of my life.

When we first got out of our car to knock on the barber's door, I was afraid we would be seen as rude Americans bothering people. But my parents believed in connection and the power of asking. If they had listened to my fears, we would have missed the gift. And we would've kept our family from giving and receiving the gift, too.

In Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus goes on to say this: "Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asks for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asks for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him."

So often when we think people and God are against us, it's not because they are; it's because we're not giving them a chance to love us. All these people said yes to us. All this happened because we were willing to be open, ask and believe.

Jesus asks us to ask. What if we tried it?