Luke 11:5-13
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
July 6, 2025
Though many of us worry about the spiritual direction of our country, according to a Pew Research poll published in May, nearly half of Americans still pray every single day. Forty-four percent of U.S. adults say they pray at least once a day, and another 23% say they pray weekly or several times a month. That means that two thirds of the country pray with some regularity.
But how much of that praying is just asking God for stuff, as opposed to praying to draw closer to Him and embrace His agenda of love, justice and witness to Jesus?
Last Sunday, in the initial sermon of this mini-series on prayer, we reflected on how prayer is not primarily about getting things from God, but about getting God into every part of who we are and what we do. Prayer is first and foremost a means of centering ourselves around God and His beautiful purposes in this world.
Yet, noting the higher priority does not invalidate any lower priority such as making requests of God. After all, by the model prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to ask for our daily bread and deliverance from times of trial. In today’s scripture He urges us to ask of God that we might receive from God.
Yet we must at the same time beware of the temptation to reduce God to the great “Need-Meet-er” in the sky. A teacher recently polled her students about the images by which they think of God. Most of them said they see God as a celestial Santa Claus who’ll be good to you if you’re “nice”, but won’t if you’re naughty. Almost as many saw God as a cosmic vending machine in whom you put your spiritual money in hopes of getting something good in return. If either of these images matches how you think of God, could you ever “devote yourself to prayer” as last Sunday’s scripture commands?
But what if you imagine God as a faithful Friend who’s infinite in His resources and extravagant in sharing them? Or as a big-hearted Lover who loves to love you and can’t do too much for you? Or as a perfect Father who, like a Dad watching His children tear open their presents Christmas morning, beams with giddy delight over your enjoying His many gifts?
To get clear about whom we’re addressing in prayer and to bear in mind what He’s like give us a sense of expectancy that motivates us to “pray without ceasing”.
In today’s scripture, Jesus reminds us of who God is with back-to-back parables of contrast – that is, parables whose main characters are meant, not to depict how God is, but to jolt us into recollecting how different God is.
In the first of these two parables, Jesus helps us remember that God is the opposite of a grumpy, put-out acquaintance who couldn’t care less about our late-night crisis and only begrudgingly helps us in order to get us to shut up and go away. If someone that irritated over being inconvenienced by our need ends up providing for us, how much the more will the God who eagerly sits on the edge of His heavenly throne to help us?
In the second parable Jesus helps us remember that God is the opposite of a sadistic father who gets a kick out of playing cruel practical jokes on a child such as serving them a scorpion for breakfast. If even an evil parent like that still gives good gifts to their child, how much the more will the God who sacrificed His only Son for us give us the best gift of all: the Holy Spirit?
Of course, recognizing that God welcomes our making requests of Him doesn’t mean that He’ll always give us what we want or that what He does give us will even look like a gift of love – for often we only have eyes for what we have in mind. Billy Graham’s wife, Ruth, admitted, “God has not always answered my prayers. If he had, I would’ve married the wrong man – several times.”
Actually, there’s never a prayer that God does not answer. He just answers some prayers by denying their request (either forever or for a while). Many of us, like Ruth, know we have as much reason to thank God for His No’s as for His Yes’s. We’re grateful He turned us down in order to give us what’s better, what we would have wanted had we known everything He does.
Getting clear about God’s intentions and trusting in His superior wisdom enable us to get the most from the Most High. For then we won’t insist on getting what we think best, in the way and at the time we think best; but we’ll have the faith to accept however God decides to respond, no matter how it differs from what we hoped for
Jennifer Kennedy Dean tells of a desperately afraid woman named Mary who asked her to pray for her drug-addicted son who’d just been arrested for dealing. Mary had prayed long and hard for him; but God seemed to have never answered. So Mary approached Jennifer as someone who might get results of the kind she was looking for. Mary had a detailed list of the steps God should take: leniency in sentencing, good rehab, a helpful halfway house, and so forth.
Jennifer asked Mary, “What’s your heart’s desire for your son?” Mary started to recite her steps, but Jennifer cut her short, saying, “No. Those are the things you think will bring about what you desire.” Now, it’s hard to know the desire of our heart until we know the heart of our desire. So Jennifer helped Mary peel back the layers until she uncovered the core of her desire: That her son know Jesus and the peace He gives. “Then that is what we’ll pray for,” Jennifer said. Immediately, however, everything appeared to get worse for Mary’s son; and a panicking Mary protested, “Why isn’t God doing anything?” Jennifer reminded her of what they were praying for. “Don’t assume God isn’t acting,” she said. “Look for the path His Yes is taking.”
Eventually, Mary’s son was sentenced to a lengthy prison term. His difficulties continued there. But by those very difficulties, everything fell into place for a miracle of God’s own doing. A fellow inmate led him to Christ and got him involved in prison Bible studies. At his release, his parole officer made sure he attended 12-step meetings and participated in the life of a church. So, to this day, Mary’s son is still walking with Christ and enjoying life clean and sober.
We know God’s heart better than His mind. Thus, His ways of bringing about what’s best are often mysterious and create the optical illusion that a step forward is a step backward; or a step up, a step down.
Often our expectations and demands can blind us from seeing how God is pursuing the fulfillment of our heart’s desire by a path unlike any we’d envisioned. So let us pray without ceasing as we give God all the faith we can and all the freedom we can to do things His way. For that’s the way to get the most from the Most High!
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