Impudent Praying: thoughts from Jesus’ words in Luke 11.8

Here is Jesus with his disciples, they ask of him, ‘teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ Jesus replies, when you pray say . . .‘ and he gives what history has named The Lord’s Prayer.

In Luke’s book Jesus goes on teaching about prayer: he tells the story of a rude neighbor who comes banging on his friend’s door at 2am going on about how he needs some bread because another rude friend came and wanted to crash at his place. The man who had the neighbor at his door was already in bed wearing his boxers catching some Zzz so he could function the next day; being rightly annoyed he says, ‘hey, I’m sleeping, you schlub; go away, I’m not getting up for your friend who doesn’t know how to plan ahead of time!’ But the man at the door persists: ‘Hey man, I need some bread!’ ‘Get lost you turtle-neck wearer!’ ‘Come on! I need some bread for this guy!’

Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that the man who was sleeping eventually gets up, gets bread, and gives it to his annoying neighbor NOT because they were friends but because the guy was, impudent.

I had no clue what impudent meant so I looked it up: essentially it is not being respectful by following what is the norm based on society or tradition. So the guy is a little unorthodoxed in his approach but he gets his bread. So what is Jesus trying to convey to his guys who are following him? It seems that Jesus is saying, ‘God is your Father and He loves you and nothing is too hard for Him. There may be some traditions and rules about how you should approach Him, but remember to approach Him; you needn’t go to a temple or wear certain clothes or say specific things, but ask HIM!’ This is along the same lines as the writer of Hebrews who says we can go confidently to the ‘throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’

The Creator of all things, while wild and subservient to no one, is our Father who loves us. When we pray we are banging on His door, we are calling on Him, we are, in a sense, becoming a welcome nuisance to Him. No liturgy, no heartless quotes, no muttering of the same phrase over and over will help, only coming to God because of what Jesus has done will do; because Jesus gave us a voice with God. God does not care for fancy phrases and perfect theology; He wants those broken enough to know they are in need of Him. You’re never too sinful; you’re never too messed up; you don’t need to get things right before going to God; you dont need to have some feeling or sign and you’re never going TO BE good enough to go to God: Jesus fills that place for us.

I'm Confused About Prayer

As is often the case with me, I’ll return to the ‘I’m a new believer’ phase of thinking where all thoughts on an issue are scrapped and I just plop down and say, ‘I don’t get it.’ Prayer is now entered into that phase in my mind.

‘Ask anything in my name,’ says Jesus, ‘Ask whatever you wish according to my will,’ he goes ‘and it’s yours.’ I want to stand abruptly up and yell, ‘You’re a liar!!’ But this is sheer and fully developed foolishness. I cannot reach the point of saying, ‘well God’s answer must not have been yes, but no.’ What did I do wrong? How am I supposed to know what is according to His will, can I discern the intent of the Almighty? Some say, ‘you must pray for that which advances God’s kingdom and what is pleasing to God.’ Ugh, okay, so not blatant sin, I got that; but I pray for things that I genuinely think could help God’s kingdom and, in fact, might help me with certain sins. I read James’ words of ‘you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your own desires’ and think, well of course I’m asking for things I want; didn’t Jesus, your brother, tell me to ask for whatever I wanted? I read an article that said that it would be much easier if there were specific formulas to follow in order to know where you took a misstep leading to God not answering you; yes, I guess, in a sense, that would leave the faith part out of it though, where’s the fun in that? The beginning of James speaks of asking and God granting without reproach, and God will abundantly give! But there is a blazing caveat, ask in faith, which is directly contrasted with doubting or wavering (also Matt. 21.21). According to what I’ve read the word used here for doubting is the process of considering that one thing may or may not be the best, most useful or efficient method; the process of judging whether this is good or not, that person, says Jesus’ brother, must not presume or think or even reason that he will receive anything from God! Jesus and prayer are no shoes to be tried on and then judged worthy, they are accepted or rejected; you either partake fully or not at all; faith is not faith if it is not fully faith. So I guess passive prayer is no prayer at all. So then what does the faith in prayer look like? Is this something that the Prosperity Gospel people got right, name and claim? Maybe their logic is right, they realize the necessary tools, but their desires for mansions etcetera are bad—the James 4 people. Like one’s conversion it is not a mind over matter ordeal, something outside of us has to happen for our internals to believe or have faith, we cannot, again, we in no way can just say to ourselves, ‘Just believe, just believe!’ We’ll become like another group that Jesus says not to be like, those who ramble through the same phrase over and over again trying to convince themselves of the validity of what they utter. Maybe it is others oriented: you see the guys with their paralytic friend, their faith was what prompted Jesus to act; Jairus’ daughter . . . I could go on. But then there are places such as Mark 5.34 or Mark 10.52 or Luke 18.42 and others where Jesus clearly states that the faith of the individual made that same individual well. And based on Acts 3.16, to pray in Jesus’ name does not mean to simply speak, in your head or out loud, ‘In Jesus’ name,’ rather to simply have—tah-dah!—faith in Jesus. Faith is not static, it can be weak and strong, big and small but I suppose it to be like a light; though it may be dim it still exists and most times that is enough. So if prayer is really and mainly dependent on faith, belief, trust (all similar) in Jesus and God; and if faith, which the bible seems to indicate in many places, fluctuates, then sometimes I cannot earnestly ask God for something in prayer. ‘What?!’ I heard you. I’ll say it again, there are times when a Christian, though having some faith, does not have enough faith to trustingly and believingly ask God in prayer for something to happen. Is this really true?

A wise man once said--the everyone repeated him--faith is not about the individual but the object of that individuals faith; what do you have faith IN, or WHO? Okay, so if I have faith in Jesus who, according to the Apostle Paul, all the promises of God find their 'Yes' in and who sits in between Christians and the Father pleading on their behalf to God what's the deal? Why are my prayers not getting answered? Is God a liar and acting like some mean dad who said, 'yea I'll give you whatever you ask' but has zero intention of so doing? Am I unrighteous because James said that the prayer of a righteous man has much power.'Or does God tell us to pray because it is some sort of helpful thing for humans to do?