SEEK KNOCK ASK

Matthew 7:7-11 (KJV)
“7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
As Jesus concludes His sermon on the mount He exhorts them to pray. This exhortation to pray is right on the heel of warning them against rash judgements. This marks the importance of what and why we should pray in the specifics of rash judgments; in other words, this prayer is not seeking, knocking, or asking in general, it becomes a prayer of finding the reason of our struggles caused by our own rash judgements. Then, His sermon redirects us to examine more closely our rash judgments by examining our ownership in the struggle.
Some things will never occur to us or open to us about ourselves unless we knock on that door. Some things will stay hidden to us until we humble ourselves and pray with a seeking that seeks where we have missed it. Some things we will never know about the events we have judged rashly unless we stop asking the wrong questions and start asking the right questions.
As to why Jesus brings the serpent into the equation; we must trust God in our prayer that He will reveal us to us not to harm us but to heal us. His heart is not to condemn us as the serpent does; His heart is to save us from us.