In the previous meditation we noted: how the first set of four statements in the Lord’s Prayer focus on our Father’s perspective; and how these can be paired with the second set of four statements, which focus on our earthly needs (see boxes).

And he goes on to talk about how we should ask our Father for food. Also for other things we need. And, in Matthew’s account, he tells his disciples how they should not pray for their needs to be met.

Jesus tells them first how we need to gain our Father’s perspective. Since he is in heaven he knows our earthly needs, even before we ask. This awareness by itself, however, actually sounds contradictory to many people. ‘If God is such an all-knowing Father,’ they say, ‘why do I even have to ask him for what I need? He should just provide for my needs without my having to ask!’ Have you ever felt that way? This objection, though, is based on a very limited or even negative experience of human fatherhood. And Jesus seems to recognize this. So he challenges all the fathers listening to think about how they respond positively to the requests of their children, even if they themselves had ‘evil’ experiences with their own fathers.

But our heavenly Father doesn’t want to be only like a better ‘provider’ to underage children than our earthly fathers. According to Luke, he wants to relate to us as adult sons and daughters by giving the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. And as we have seen in earlier meditations, the Holy Spirit is the Father’s coming of age’ gift that makes us adult co-heirs with Jesus, our Eldest Brother (Med.#5 & #7). Most readers miss this part of what Jesus is saying, because they only knew their fathers as ‘providers’ for them as children. They never knew the friendship love of a father treating them as an adult son or daughter. Yet Jesus’ parable in Luke represents the same Father—to whom we ask ‘give us today our daily bread’—as a ‘friend’ of the person asking for ‘bread’. People who don’t want to ‘bother’ their friends when they have needs show that they don’t have much of a relationship with them.

The reason our heavenly Father wants us to ask for what we need is because he wants to relate to us as adult sons and daughters (Med.#51). He knows what we need and is not reluctant to give us good things, but maturity means learning what we truly want, and what is good for us. This is how children develop their own will. And it is only when we know our own will that we are able to learn to align it with our Father’s will. Sometimes, however, this can be a confusing and painful process.

When I was 22 years old, I very much wanted to get married. Being close to a particular young woman, I sought God’s perspective—asking him if I could ask her to marry me. I even ‘kept asking’, just like Jesus taught in the above text. Then, I finally thought I heard him answer, ‘Yes’. When my girlfriend said she wasn’t sure, I decided to just give her time to hear from God like I had. Six months later, she finally told me, ‘No’. I was shattered. Three years passed before I understood what had happened, while reading the following quote from George MacDonald.[iii]

'Even such as ask amiss may sometimes have their prayers answered. The Father will never give the child a stone that asks for bread; but I am not sure that he will never give the child a stone that asks for a stone. If the Father says, “My child, that is a stone; that is no bread”, and the child answers, “I am sure it is bread; I want it”, might it not be well that he should try his ‘bread’?

I suddenly realized that my Father had only said that I could propose to my girlfriend; he never indicated what her answer would be. From this I learned to be more humble about what I thought I heard from my Father—especially when another person’s desires were at stake. Further, the very next citation from MacDonald[iv] taught me something else about persistent prayer as an adult son: specifically, why my heavenly Father might not respond right away to one of my requests.

‘The better the gift we pray for, the more time is necessary for its arrival. God may have to begin far back in our spirit, in regions unknown to us, and do much work that we can be aware of only in the results.’

MacDonald then compares this to a volcano, and how we only become aware of the great fire building up inside the mountain when it finally erupts. 

‘God may be approaching our consciousness through regions of our darkness…, long before we begin to be aware: that he is answering our request, has answered it, and is visiting his child.’

Persistent prayer is intended to be ‘learning prayer’. Our Father wants us to learn about ourselves and about him, even as we ask and reflect on how he responds (Med.#86). Even as I was reading MacDonald, I met Debbie. But more important were the changes that my Father had done in me during those three years.

There is one form of persistence in prayer, common in many cultures and even in some church groups, that Jesus condemns: petitionary prayer that is repetitive and characterized by a great ‘volume of words’. Much like the prolonged ranting and shouting of the 450 prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:19,26-29), such public praying is like the manipulative whining of little children who are more focused on ‘getting the goods’—and getting them now!—than on a growing relationship with their Dad.

How about you? Are you able to keep on asking, seeking and knocking in your prayers because you trust your Father’s good character and his timing, even when he doesn’t answer right away? Are you able to learn to know him and yourself better in the process, or are you more interested in ‘getting the goods’? If the ‘evil’ behavior of an earthly father or father-figure becomes an obstacle that keeps from trusting your heavenly Father, remember: to know what he is like, you need to focus on Jesus and not on your earthly father (Med.#2 & Med.#10).

Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy; give us today our daily bread, and deliver us from evil. (Mat. 6:9,11,13b)

No evil is found in you, Father; and all good giving and every mature gift comes from you. (Jas.1:13,17)

Grant us power through your Holy Spirit in our inner person: so that through faith, the Messiah may reside in our hearts; so that we may know his love, and your love which surpass knowledge; so we may be filled, Father, with all your fullness. (Eph.3:16-17a,14,19b)

[i] In The Good News of the Messiah by the Four Witnesses, which mostly follows Luke’s narrative order, the first three verses appear in Chapter 14, p.67. The remainder of the Scripture Passage (except for Mat.6:11) is taken from chapter 30, pp.149-150.

[ii] On why I render the Greek plural word tekna as ‘sons and daughters’ in my translations, see Med.#5, paragraph 6 and footnote [ii].

[iii] ‘Corrective Granting’ (#105) in C.S.Lewis, George MacDonald, An Anthology, Collins, Fount Paperbacks, 1983, p.105.

[iv] ‘Why We Must Wait’ (#106), Ibid.