Does God Give Us Just The Good Things We Ask For?

Q. Can you give me your understanding of the scripture Luke Chapter 11 verses 1 -15. We had our men’s bible study last night and one of the guys is stuck on this. He believes that this scripture (the ask and it will be given section) means that you can ask for anything and God will give it to you. Bad or good. I tried to explain to him that Jesus was talking of the Holy Spirit and Faith. But I would appreciate any further depth on this.

A. In Luke’s version of this event Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to all who ask.  In a parallel passage (Matt. 7:11) Jesus said that the Father loves to give good gifts to His children.  In Matt. 21:22 He said that if we believe we will receive whatever we ask for in prayer. He made a similar statement in Mark 9:23.  In James 1:17 we’re told that every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord and Romans 8:28 says that he’s working all things together for our good.

Putting this all together, we can assume that the gifts we can have for the asking are consistent with God’s nature, which is good.  But because He’s given us the power to do so, we can choose bad things for ourselves, bad meaning things that God would rather we didn’t choose.  But we should realize that the bad things we get aren’t gifts from God.  They come to us because we have the freedom to choose them in spite of what God wants for us.