patient, and persistent

This was a Study Note in my Bible for Luke 11:5-13...

“Do you ever feel impatient with God? Does He seem late in answering your requests or meeting your needs? Jesus spoke to the issues of how to pray, how long to pray, and how long it might take God to answer. One day His disciples asked Him to teach them to pray and He told a story about someone with a need who was very persistent in asking a neighbor for help.

The story makes it clear that our ability to ask doesn’t equal God’s ability to give, or His timing. God’s not a celestial bellhop waiting on our every beck and call. Neither does He rely on us to define our needs, outline solutions, or say when or how He should act. No, God does those things for us – which is just as well since He’s the wise one out of the two of us. (Just yesterday I was reminded how God intercedes for us - again, we are reminded how He knows better how to ANSWER prayers as well..).

God delights in His children developing the habit and freedom of asking Him for help. But He won’t leave us trapped in our limited perception of the situation. Sooner or late He will answer our prayers, but in His own time, and His own way. He asks us to trust Him to know what is needed and when.

Our calling, then, is to ask – even persistently ask – and to grow in the process. One of the surprising benefits of prayer is how much we change. Sometimes, that in itself is the answer to our prayers.”

Am I persistent in my prayers?

I find myself persistent in asking humans in my life. But if I truly believe those bigger things, then why don’t I continue, or even start, asking God? Novel idea – why haven’t I thought of this before? Hmm.

And then I have had a desire for quite a while now for deeper community and fellowship at church, and to find ways to become more involved. Have I asked God for it? Yeah, lazily here and there – but that’s not persistently knocking on the door that Jesus talks about in Luke. Maybe we have not, because we ask not. And not just not asking once, we can all do that – that’s easy. But really ask. Persistently ask. Just like as parents, or since I know nothing about that, as teachers. As a teacher, there were kids and times that they would come and ask to go to the restroom. That time wasn’t really convenient, so my theory was that I would say no, then if they took the effort to ask AGAIN, then I would know they really needed to go. Lame, I understand that, but we all do it – I imagine parents use the same M.O. at times as well. And if we are created in God’s image, then that means that some of our tendencies are God-like, in that, we act innately the way God created us in His image to act. So then, doesn’t God probably do this same thing? Hmm… well, she asked, but is this important enough to her to ask again? And again, and again? If she gives up and stops at the first sign of discouragement, then is it really that important to her?

Maybe I need to learn, or re-learn over and over again, the habit of persistent prayer. It's not like I've never heard, or read, this before. It's just that sometimes I feel like I’m just saying the same thing over and over again, and scripture tells us not to send up rote, tired prayers – But sometimes we are told to knock and knock and knock, until the door is opened. Or until we are changed in the process.

You can’t make things like community happen, I know – but I’ve had it and it’s so sweet. I want that again. But maybe God has me here for a purpose, and for a time. And during that time, maybe I’m supposed to plant my own garden and tend to my own flowers, and share them with those around me first. When Jeremiah wrote to those remaining in exile, he said… Jer 29:5-7 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce... seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you.”

And I do love this “city” that I’m in. Sometimes I wish for some more neighbors – but all in good, no, God’s time.