05/11/2026
(Jesus said: ) ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 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!’ (Luke 11:5–13)
We make several requests every week. We order at cafés, ask for help from our friends, or the pastor at out church to bless our new home. We book appointments, apply for jobs and make offers on houses.
While all these requests are very different, they also have something in common: We expect to get what we asked for in a timely manner. If it took three hours for the barista to tell you that they actually can’t make you that latte you already paid for, you probably wouldn’t be very happy.
Because requests are such an important part of our daily lives, it’s not that surprising that they also shape the way we understand prayer. Today’s Gospel might also lead us into thinking that if we just asked, we could receive anything we wanted. Easy! And don’t worry if you don’t get what you asked for right away, just ask again, pester God a little harder and ta-da! All your wishes will come true. What a fantastic deal!
But, as we know, things rarely work this way. There might have been long periods of time in our lives when we have searched without finding anything, when we have asked and asked, without getting a single answer. We might have listened to others tell how all their silly-sounding prayers were answered while yelling at God, demanding to know why our altruistic requests for peace or healing or a miracle seem to go unnoticed. We might have banged the door until the sides of our fists started bleeding without anyone coming to open it.
And at the end of all this, we might've made the conclusion that God must not care or exist or – what’s even worse – that there must be something wrong with us or our prayers if God just chooses to ignore them.
But if we look at the Gospel reading closely, we see a more nuanced take on how praying is different from our meal orders and how God’s role in our lives much is more meaningful than being a customer care centre owing us great service.
In the passage Jesus says a lot, but one thing he doesn’t say is that if you pray, ask, search, or knock today, you will receive, find, and see doors opening within the next 10 business days or in the next two years or by the end of the decade. It sounds like a cop-out to say that “Oh, God DOES always answer our prayers, but not always in our timeline”. And maybe it is a cop-out. But, at the end of the day, both God and prayer are such mysteries that the most anyone can say about them is a guesstimation based on what God has revealed to us through Scripture, the creation, and Jesus. And if we believe God is eternal, then we also need to accept that God’s perception of time is very different than ours. To him a thousand years is like one day and one day like a thousand years! It might very well be that the life we are living today or some parts of it are answers to the prayers we had a decade ago. It might even be that us being here, us being born, has been an answer to the prayers someone had way before we ever existed. It might be that, in a week’s time, this moment right here, even if it doesn’t seem in any way special right now, turns out to be an answer to a prayer you’ve had for a long while.
But for us to see that God is actually answering our prayers requires our hearts to be open to this possibility. And the way to make sure that can happen is to stay in prayer. When we make praying a part of our lives, as natural and important as breathing or catching up with our loved-ones, we can feel the Holy Spirit shaping us, changing how we see the world and our place in it. And when we pair it with getting to know God through Scripture and shared worship and hymns and the holy meal, we build on a foundation rooted in the understanding that God only wants good thing for us. With this knowledge comes trust in the fact that even when we don’t get what we want, even when we are disappointed, even if our expectations are not met, even when we are hurt, we are also held in the care of someone who loves us.
Have a lovely week, everyone!
