TODAY'S SPECIAL: Luke 11:1-13
TO CHEW ON: "'So I say to you, ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.'" Luke 11:9-10
If you saw my monthly prayer list, you would know that I take these words of Jesus seriously. Many of the items keep reappearing month after month, even year after year. In some ways, the fact that they are still there is a "yes" answer. In the case of ill family members and friends, that they're still on my list means they're still alive to be prayed for.
It's good to know that instead of resenting our persistence (which can also be translated importunity, overboldness, and shamelessness) God encourages it.
A little footnote in my Bible explains it this way:
"Jesus teaches persistence in prayer along with a sense of urgency and boldness. He does not suggest that we must overcome God's reluctance to respond to our requests but that we must be earnest and wholehearted in prayer. The persistence is necessary for our benefit, not God's." New Spirit Filled Life Biblep. 1409.
For what do you continue to ask? What do you keep seeking? What doors remain closed? Whether your requests are for yourself or others, pester God about them. He doesn't mind. Instead, He invites bulldog prayer habits.
PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for this invitation to persist in prayer. Today it encourages me to pray with new energy for the things that have been on my prayer list a long time. Amen.
MORE:Prayer Lists
Do you use a prayer list? For years I have gone back and forth between using one and not. In 2008 I invented a form that I can fill in weekly (though I have been doing it monthly). It has a space for answered prayers. I describe it here.
How do you keep track of things to pray for?
Do your 8-12-year-olds have daily devotions? Point them to Bible Drive-Thru.
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