Shameless and Bold in Prayer
“For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Have you ever felt like your prayer life is too formal and dry? Have you ever held back your words, wondering whether God truly cares or will respond? If so, there is good news!
In today’s passage, Jesus introduces a parable. His disciples have asked him how to pray. In Luke 11:1-4, he teaches them the Lord’s Prayer. Then, he tells a story. People in the Middle East sometimes traveled late at night to avoid the daytime heat, but knocking on someone’s door so late was considered a shameless disturbance.4 The Greek word in verse eight, anaideia (ἀναίδεια), literally means shamelessness, impudence, or boldness.5 Immediately after in verses nine to thirteen, Jesus continues by teaching us that our prayers should reflect this same kind of boldness. His commands to ask, seek, and knock are all in the present active imperative tense, which shows us that we are to pray boldly and consistently. Jesus concludes with reassurance that God listens, cares, and will never be malicious in answering us when we pray for the things we need which are according to his will.
God promises to hear and respond to our needs. And whatever the answer—yes, no, or wait—it comes to us like bread given to a child by a loving, kind father—not as a scorpion. God wants to be bothered by us! He invites us to ask for more of the Holy Spirit, and he is eager to give it to us this Lenten season. Three years ago, in a season of deep hopelessness, this passage met me at the very bottom. It opened the way to experiencing God’s transforming care in my life. May it do the same for you.
Lord, help me approach you boldly and honestly in prayer. Fill me with your Spirit, guide me to your cross, and open my eyes to my sin and your glory. Amen.
IRENA-MIRIAM NVOTA
Master of Divinity, Truett Seminary
Bački Petrovac, Serbia
4 JAMES R. EDWARDS, The Gospel According to Luke, Pillar New Testament Commentary (La Vergne: IVP, 2020), 448–49; Walter Bauer et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, ed. Frederick William Danker, 4th ed. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2021), 55.
5 Bauer et al., BDAG - A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 55.