So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. -Luke 11:9-10, NIV
Prayer can be frustrating, can’t it? Maybe I am alone in this one, but sometimes it becomes so hard for me to pray. In my humanity, I can hardly comprehend prayer. I believe and know fully that prayer is talking to God like He is my best friend and the frequency of building an intimate relationship with Him, but sometimes the lack of results lead me to doubt. Does God care? I catch myself praying less, praying smaller and praying with little confidence when I do not see the answers to my prayers. Spiritually, I find myself eye-rolling God as if He’s behind schedule, not showing up on time, or He’s just simply silent. This kind of thinking usually feels much like a fly in a spider’s web – stuck. Frustration and even anger take over, and I feel completely abandoned.
In this frustration, I desperately need to cling to the words of this verse. I desperately need to understand that sometimes, “ask and you will receive” does not happen on my human terms; they happen on God’s terms. God works on a time frame I cannot comprehend and a plan that is so good I can never imagine. I desperately need to understand that, “the door will be opened” sometimes to something I didn’t expect, plan, or ask for. But, more importantly, I need to know to keep knocking and praying with persistence and endurance. Why keep knocking when there’s no answer? The funny thing is, I can trust while I’m knocking and while I’m praying, because I know the answerer to my prayers- it is my loving Jesus. I can knock, ask, and pray with persistence and confidence because I know that He longs to answer me, and He longs to bless me with His answers. Sometimes God makes me wait, sometimes He doesn’t, but He is always good, and His answers are always worth waiting for.
Some ways that I find helpful in combating a frustrated prayer life are simple: memorize scripture (hello, Luke 11:9-10 ), keep praying, and to remember God’s past faithfulness in preparation for His continued faithfulness. If you have never tried writing down your prayers, do it! It completely transformed my prayer life because I can go back and see with my own eyes that I, “asked and received” and that when I knocked, “doors (were) opened” Oh, how faithful He is! Keep praying, ladies, “seek and you will find.”
Written by Caroline Brittingham
