Luke 11:9

Ask. For comment on vs. 9-13 see on Matt. 7:7, 11. Prayer is not so much a matter of persuading God to accept our will concerning a matter as of our discovering His will with respect to it. He knows our needs before we ask; more than that. He knows what is best for us. In contrast, we are often but dimly conscious of our own need. We frequently think we need things that we do not need and that may even be harmful to us; conversely, we may not even be aware of our greatest needs (cf. COL 145). Prayer will bring our wills, and thus our lives, into harmony with the will of God (see COL 143). It is the divinely appointed means of educating our desires. It is not the true purpose of prayer to work a change in God, but to work a change in us so that we desire “both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

To the sincere suppliant God will send an answer to every petition uttered in humility and faith. He may say “Yes,” He may say “No,” or He may say simply “Wait.”

Sometimes answer to prayer may be delayed because a change must come about in our own hearts before God can answer it (see DA 200). There are definite conditions to answered prayer, and if there seems to be delay, we should inquire whether the difficulty may be with us. It is an insult to God to be impatient with Him when we have not complied with the conditions under which it is possible for Him to answer prayer.

The central lesson of the parable is, of course, steadfastness in prayer. The parable also defines the kind of requests for which our Lord counsels steadfastness — prayers whose object is the blessing of our fellow men and the extension of His kingdom. “All that Christ received from God we too may have” (COL 149). Fickleness in prayer is not pleasing to God, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). He who is fickle in prayer is not really expecting anything of God. “He that wavereth” need not “think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” (James 1:6, 7).