It’s too hard. I’m too tired. I’ve tried and it just doesn’t work. No matter what I do it always ends the same way. Why bother anymore? I’m sure that God is too busy to listen to my prayers.

These sound familiar? They do to me, mainly because I have used them myself but I am not alone. Sometimes we convince ourselves that it is easier to just give up than to try to push through until we get the answer we are looking for.

The disciples are wanting to know how Jesus does it, how He seems to get God to listen and not only listen but get answers to His prayers. Don’t we all? So in Luke 11 they ask Him to teach them. Great place to start. Find someone who is doing it more effectively than you are and learn. He teaches them the elements of prayer in what we call, The Lord’s Prayer. But they want more than a formula; they want prayer to work for them.

So He gives them a parable, a story about a man who has an unexpected guest arrive and he has nothing to feed him. Hospitality is extremely important in that culture and so he decides to go to his friend to see if he can get some bread. It’s late at night, the family is in bed when the knock comes to the door. The initial response is: “Go away. You’re going to wake up my kids. Come back in the morning.”

I have to confess that I would probably give up and go home. So would many of you but by doing so we would not get what we hope to get.

Jesus tells His disciples that because of the persistence of the man, his friend gets up, gives him the bread and they both go on their way, one to bed and the other to feed his friend.

The point is brought home. “And I say to you, ask and it will will given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened (Luke 11:9-10). The tense of the verbs is not a one-time-will-do-it. It’s keep at it until you get the answer you are seeking, until you get the request you are asking.

Have you ever thought to yourself, (or declared openly), that I guess it must not be God’s will, that I am asking wrongly? Have you ever laid the charge against God that He must be unjust and uncaring because He does not listen to me, let alone answer me?

Maybe it’s not on God’s end at all. Maybe we just have not had the tenacity, (such as the friend), to press through. Maybe we have just given up when, if we had pressed through a little longer, we would get the answer we were looking for.

It is always to soon to quit, especially in those things which really matter in life. Press in and press on for He is not unjust or asleep at the wheel.

Blessings!