Luke 11:1-13
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them,“When you pray, say:“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.”5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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!”
This passage is all about prayer and persistence in prayer. I know that during our journey through infertility (and even before that in other areas of life) I have been absolutely perplexed by passages like this. I feel like I grew up just hearing verses 9 and 10 in isolation from the rest of the passage and they never made any sense. It sure sounded to me like God would give me anything I asked for. If you add in verses 5-8, it makes it sound like you can wear God down by persistent prayer. Like if you annoy Him enough He will give you whatever you want just to get you to shut up. I never really understood that.
Everyone has heard some variation of this concept - "God always answers prayer one way or another. He either says 'yes,' 'no,' or 'later.'" I never really understood why people said this. Is that supposed to be reassuring? I suppose the intent is to communicate that God always hears every prayer, regardless of whether or not He gives you specifically what you prayed for. And it is important to trust that God knows best and not try to determine for yourself exactly what way in which you expect God to answer your prayer. But the really hard thing about prayer, especially when you feel that your prayers are not being answered, is that at the time and in the moment, there is no way to tell the difference between God saying "no" and God saying "later." How are we supposed to know that? All too often we pray and we pray and we pray for the one thing that we want more than anything else, and all we hear is the absence of that yes that we are waiting for. If we knew for sure that God was saying, "later" it would be much easier to wait! But then we wouldn't have to trust Him.
I think this passage is easier to understand when taken in context. If we look at the beginning, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to teach them to pray. Jesus proceeded with the Lord's Prayer, which we all know so well that we sometimes forget to look at it and what Jesus is really teaching here. Jesus doesn't say that we should start with the thing we want most and repeatedly ask God for it over and over and over until we get it (or until we give up and decide that God isn't listening and doesn't care about us). There is so much packed into this prayer that we could really dig in all day, but just looking at two things for now, Jesus prays, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (I realize that this isn't in this particular recounting, but it is in Matthew's account.) And then He goes on, "Give us this day our daily bread." This is praying for just our bare needs - not what we want more than anything, but what we need. Not "Give us this day cake, ice cream, and all things delicious."
In verse 8 this is reiterated, "Because of his impudence, he will rise up and give him whatever he needs." Not whatever he desires. Whatever he needs. Now we get to, "And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened." And look at the end of the passage - this is the best part. "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?" This is wonderfully reassuring. It speaks of God's love for us. If we know how to give good things to our earthly children, how very much more God must love us! And the Holy Spirit, which creates saving faith in our hearts, is the ultimate gift that God can give. Surely God loves us very much indeed, and does wish to answer our prayers and give us good gifts. But what He really wants is to give us the greatest gift of all - the gift that Christ died so that we could have - faith in Him and eternal life with Him forever.
I think that's the context for this passage. And in that light "ask and it shall be given to you" and all that makes sense. If God is talking about his Holy Spirit, of course He desires and promises to give it to all of us. But I think that we can also take reassurance from this passage that God desires to give us good things. James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above."
This baby that I am carrying is a wonderful gift and a miracle from God. She is also a beautiful and long-awaited answer to prayer. When I was praying every day for God to give me a child, I felt confused at why God would not answer my prayer. Wasn't God the one that told us to have children? Doesn't the Bible only ever talk about children as the greatest blessing? I felt sure that God's will was that I would have children because children and families are God's idea, and part of His design. So I couldn't figure out why God would answer "no" to my prayer. As it turned out God didn't answer "no" forever. But I did need to trust God that even if I didn't ever have my own children, that God would answer my prayer and longing in one way or another. I know that God does love me, I know that He does desire to give me good things, and I know that God loves families. This world we live in isn't perfect, but that isn't God's fault. We did that. It doesn't always make sense, especially when we are in the thick of one struggle or another. But we can count on God's promise that He will be there and He will answer our prayers.
And instead of praying for exactly what we think we need and nothing else, let's echo the disciples and say, "Lord, teach us to pray."
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