November 25: Surprisingly bold prayers

Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him.” Then he will answer from inside and say, “Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything.” I tell you, even though he won’t get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend’s persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. (Luke 11:5-8 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Jesus teaches a pretty shocking concept for many people in this parable about prayer. Most would never dare to insist with God like the neighbor insisted with his friend… to bother Him until He got up and gave them everything they wanted. But another parable of Jesus, the persistent widow, teaches the same concept, as do several other passages about prayer. People familiar with Greek say that “persistence” in this passage refers to shameless boldness rather than tenacity, and so Jesus’ message to us is that He is looking for people with an extreme boldness in prayer. Portuguese has an expression “cara de pau”, which translated word-for-word means “face of wood”, which expresses this attitude perfectly.

If we know something is the will of God, we should refuse to get discouraged, doubt that He cares, or lose faith in His answer. We may not understand why there is a delay in the answer to our prayers, but our job is to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. He promises that this attitude will bring the answer.

It takes faith to pray like this. Everyone would pray if answers fell into their laps the minute they made a prayer — then, even evil people would start praying. But the truth is that real answers to prayer require character and this shameless boldness, rooted in the unchangeable, infallible promises of God’s Word. True children of God develop the confidence and assurance to pray this way. When we encounter what we would call delays — God probably sees them differently — we persist with our bold prayers and receive answers from God our Father.

A prayer that lacks boldness, reveals a lack of faith, and vice-versa. Let’s start making prayers of shameless boldness.