Importunity

"...yet because of your importunity, (shameless audacity) he will surely get up and give you as much as you need" (Luke 11:8).

After studying the Prayer Fields of Silence, Confession, and Thankfulness it can come as a bit of a surprise to discover that there are other Fields of almost the very opposite; Fields of Persistence, Boldness, and even Assertiveness in Prayer.

Luke, who demonstrates a special interest in Prayer in Luke and Acts, records that when the apostles asked Jesus to teach them to pray He told the story of "your friend who arrives unexpectedly at midnight" (Luke 11:5-8). Your friend is hungry but you have no food. So you have no alternative but to go and get food from another friend in your village, and you don’t come back until you’ve got enough food for your hungry visitor.

Jesus tells us to pray like that. There are times when we should "lay hold of God" and press in until we get answers. Yet there is a balance in this. While it is surely never right to harangue our Heavenly Father there will be times when we follow His encouragement to press our claim before Him.

As the Psalmist cries out in Psalm 79:9, "Help us, God, our Saviour, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name’s sake. Why should the nations say, 'Where is their God?'" Watch how the psalmist presses God to answer; "for the glory of your name" and because all the world needs to see that You (God) are alive and active!

This is the Field of Bold Prayer. Of Persistent Prayer. Of the Prayer which presses God to answer and give the bread that is needed for the hungry visitor for the Glory of His Name! (Note how even at this point we are right back at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, "Hallowed be thy name.")

There is a right place for pressing into God, for not just asking, but seeking and knocking (a verb which implies that there is a barrier in the way which needs to be removed), and pursuing the prayer until the answer is given and established.

This is a Field where the Deep Care and Love that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts for our brothers and sisters will drive us to our knees again and again and again so that "none are lost", and so that "no one fails to obtain the Grace of God".