The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections 

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Jun 9
Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest
Luke 11:10
"Everyone who asks receives . . ."

Ask... Because You 
Cannot Do This Alone

Chambers says, “Ask if you have not received.”
He is not talking about asking for favors, blessings, or even answered prayers. He is talking about asking the Holy Spirit to help you because you have finally discovered the truth: You cannot do this under your own power.

You cannot sustain: your own life, your own spirituality, your own surrender.

We’ve talked about this in earlier devotionals — the Holy Spirit is the One who sustains everything in you. But because we live in a physical world, at some point we will drift back into trying to live under our own strength. We are human. That is what we do.

So Chambers says:
Become as a little child and ask the Holy Spirit for help.

Asking humbles you.
It puts you in the posture of submission to God — to His power, His care, His authority.
It is a distinct action that says:

“Lord, I know You are my power.
I know You are my God.
I depend on You for everything.”

Asking reminds you that you are His child — completely dependent on Him for everything you are.

 

Asking Is Spiritual Reality

Asking is not a sign of weakness—it is the evidence that the Holy Spirit has brought you into spiritual reality. Spiritual reality is when you depend on God for everything. 

But sometimes we put on a farce — to the world and even to ourselves — pretending we have it all together, trying to be spiritual in our own strength. We forget that all power and all sustaining grace come from the Lord. That pretending, that self‑effort, is being spiritually unreal. Not being spiritually real is when you are still trying to do everything under your own power — and you simply cannot.

Living a surrendered life means being fully dependent on the Holy Spirit alone to sustain you, because we can do nothing without Him. Jesus said that unless we become as little children, we will in no way enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus was not talking about salvation which is achieved by grace alone, but about the posture required to live in His kingdom; salvation is by grace, but childlike surrender is how we walk with Him after we are saved. Surrender equals discipleship; childlikeness equals posture, not qualification.

The kingdom of God is not a place we go someday, but the life of God ruling in us here and now. It is the daily, earthly experience of walking with Jesus in dependence, surrender, and childlike trust. The kingdom is present wherever His will is done, wherever His Spirit sustains, wherever His life is lived through us instead of by us. It is the spiritual reality of letting Christ be our strength, our wisdom, our source, and our guide — right here on earth, in the ordinary moments of our lives.

Salvation makes you God's child.

I prayed, I acknowledged Him as Lord, and yet I lived unsurrendered for decades — but even then, He was the One sustaining my life. Dependence is true whether we embrace surrender or not.

Surrender makes you a disciple. 

When living a surrendered life, we must remember to stay humble and not let the surrendered life of Christ living through us give us a sense of being important or powerful, for we definitely are not. 

All power, all things given us come from the life of Christ being lived out through us, not by us. 

Even though the Holy Spirit helps us anyway, sustaining us as we learned earlier, asking gets you where you need to be:
on your knees
acknowledging Him as the Source
remembering who He is
remembering who you are.

So we ask the Holy Spirit to help us —
to be active in our lives,
to keep us spiritually real,
to keep us under His care,
to keep us dependent on Him alone.

Breath Prayer

Inhale: Lord, You are my source.
Exhale: You are my everything.

Prayer

Lord, I cannot live this life without You.
I yield to Your sovereign care.  

Keep me in surrender and obedience.

Bestow on me Your peace.
Make me like a little child — looking to You for everything that I am.

You are the source of my strength, the sustaining power in my life.
In Jesus' name, Amen.

~ Quil

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Scripture References

Luke 11:10 — “Everyone who asks receives…”
Luke 11:13 — “…how much more will your Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”
James 1:5 — “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God…”
John 15:5 — “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Matthew 5:3 — “Blessed are the poor in spirit…”