ARE YOU PERSISTENT IN PRAYER?
Jesus used one verb and three participles to teach persistence in prayer. His verb was “keep on.” This gives the idea of persistent and ongoing prayer. Yet, it has a stopping point with a promise. We are to “keep on” until we receive, find, or have opened that which is the focus of our prayers. So, “keeping on” is key.
The three participles, “asking, seeking, knocking” describe that which we must “keep on” doing in prayer. Asking is an admission of emptiness. It has been said that asking is the currency of heaven. As God’s children, we ask for our needs to be met. He is a good Father and will not give us a “snake when we ask for a fish” (Matt. 7:10). In asking we become as a child admitting that we don’t have what is needed and that only the Father can supply it. Ask until you receive.
Seeking is an admission of lostness. We seek directions for the way because we are lost, or we seek because we have lost something we care about. Where should we look? We tend to look in all the wrong places. Yet, Jesus tells us to look to the Father. Seek to find yourself and whatever is lost, in and from the Father. Seek until you find.
Knocking is an admission of desiring admission. We say with our knocking, “Let me in, please open the door.” And with our persistent knocking we say, “PLEASE OPEN THE DOOR!” This may seem ill mannered, yet the one who is in a desperate situation will have no qualms about persistent and loud knocking. It does not offend the Father to hear you knocking on heaven’s door. Knock until the door opens.
PRAYER: Lord, we come to You today asking, seeking and knocking. We are learning to “keep on” in our prayers to You with persistence. For You would have us admit our dependence on You for all things. So that we look to You for all things. Father, help us. We are empty, lost and shut out without You. We look to You to fill us, find us, and open the way for us. In Jesus name, Amen.