"He [the LORD] will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37: 4b). "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:19). "You may ask for anything in my name and I will do it" (John 14:14).
I have heard these verses and others quoted in proof that if we ask, God will give. It sounds good and, hey, it is Scripture so it has to be true. It is true but only to a certain extent.
This sort of Scripture selection is similar to the poem "Blind Men and the Elephant" by John Godfrey Saxe (1.). In the poem, six blind men feel different parts of an elephant and each comes to a completely different opinion of what an elephant is like. One grabs the tusks and thinks the animal is like a spear. Another finds the trunk and assumes the behemoth is like a snake. One blind man secures the tail and says, "I see...the Elephant is very like a rope."
Though the men were in essence wrong (the whole of the elephant isn't like a rope!), they had part of it right. The trunk of an elephant is similar to a snake but in full view of its size, the animal in and of itself couldn't be farther from the truth.
The same goes with Scripture. If we blindly grab onto one verse of Scripture, such as "He will give you the desires of your heart" and fail to view the Bible as a comprehensive whole, we will miss the big picture and be stuck with only misconstrued truth. This is true for any verse or passage in God's Word.
God does promise us that He will give us what we ask for but it is to be in line with His will: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us" (1 John 5:14, emphasis added) and "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4, emphasis added).
Thus, we, as Christians, read the entirety of the Bible so that we may truly know what God says and what He requires of us.
--HM
1. http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/1/?letter=B&spage=3
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