Persistence in Prayer
3/14/25 Bible Thought (Luke 11)
One of the things that having kids has taught me repeatedly is that persistence pays off. A few months ago, we were going through a season where my oldest daughter (5) would wake up nearly every night somewhere between 3:00 and 5:00 in the morning. Whereas I would not. I would be sleeping, at least until my sleep was brought swiftly to an end through her shrieking, “DAD!”
Whatever her needs were, they varied from day to day. Contrary to the tone of her voice, no one was breaking into our home with an ax. Sometimes the music we used to help our girls sleep had stopped and she wanted it back on. A time or two she was desperate for some cold water because her mouth was dry. At least once, she was sick and wanted a cold rag for her head. No ax. No murderer. Thank God! But despite that good news, I would’ve rather been left to sleep.
Now, being a softie, I generally would get up and take care of whatever crisis was at hand. However, also being someone who loves (and needs!) sleep I rarely got up at the first cry. By about the fifth, sixth, or 21st time she had called my name I’d pull myself out of bed and take care of her. Her persistence had paid off. If there was ever a night where she’d have only called once, truthfully, I doubt I’d have gotten out of bed to help.
In Luke 11, we see the Lord Jesus sharing with His disciples concerning prayer. Here we find Luke’s account of the Lord’s prayer, which is very similar to Matthew’s account, just a little shorter:
“Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread, 4 and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation” (Lk. 11:2b-4).
Following this, the Lord Jesus offers a similar illustration to mine. There are a few friends in His story. One man has a friend show up in the middle of the night after a long journey. That man has no bread to take care of his guest, so he goes to another friend’s house and calls out to him asking for him to loan him some bread. The man, like me, at first refuses. He’s settled into bed, his kids are in bed, he can’t get up and help. But the man doesn’t leave the door. Eventually his boldness and persistence pays off, he gets the friend out of bed, and gets the bread that he’s looking for.
The Lord Jesus uses this as an example of the believer praying. He says ask, seek, and knock (Lk. 11:9). The underlying Greek contains present-tense verbs. So, in effect, Jesus is saying, “ask and keep on asking,” “seek and keep on seeking,” and “knock, and keep on knocking.” Persevere until a response comes. For if sinful, earthly fathers desire good things for their children, surely the perfect Heavenly Father desires good things for His! (see Lk. 11:11-13).
"If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk. 11:13)
On at least two occasions, I’ve heard the idea that true faith is praying once, believing God has heard, and leaving it in His hands. I’ve even heard an entire sermon on how praying repeatedly is a lack of faith! Trust God that He will act after one utterance of prayer or else you’re in the wrong. Ironically, they later used an example in the sermon of a relative that prayed and prayed and prayed for a child to be healed and how God answered, not realizing that it undermined the entire point of their sermon!
I find that the Lord Jesus shows us here that perseverance in prayer is a good thing. It’s not unbelief if you pray about something more than once. God desires to hear from us and Jesus says to ask, seek, and knock continually, until a response comes. Now, this doesn’t mean that we will manipulate the sovereign hand of God through our impudence and that He will be guaranteed to do according to our bidding. His will and ways are higher than ours. We must remember that He’s never promised to grant all our prayers, although all will be answered with yes, no, or wait.
We have the wonderful privilege as new covenant believers to bring our requests before our loving Father, and to bring them repeatedly. I love how the author to the Hebrews puts it when he writes:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:15-16).
We can take our requests to God through our Lord Jesus Christ and the door that He opened for us. Jesus knows what we go through. He experienced humanity with all its highs and lows. He is even far more acquainted with the lows than we are and even depths of suffering we’ll never know. In light of these things, we can come with confidence or boldness to the throne of God’s grace! If the Lord Jesus purchased such a privilege of prayer for us by His shed blood, why would we refrain from using it and from using it regularly?
Truly, the disciple of Christ knows that we need daily bread and so at the least we should be meeting our Father in prayer on a daily basis to praise Him (Hallowed be your name), to pray for His will to be done (Your Kingdom come), to present our needs (Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins) and to ask for His blessing and guidance (And lead us not into temptation). Let us then meet our Lord in prayer daily and persistently as we continue on our Christian journey.