"And I tell you, ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, and the door will be opened. -Lk 11:9-10
Friends, God is good, all the time.
Asking for favors, support, or assistance from others is challenging for most people, they will shun this behavior if they must. But alas! it should not be so in the context of Christian prayer. Jesus is asking us to adopt the attitudes of friendship in the ways we deal with God in prayer.
We form friendships to start relationships of interdependence. One writer describes friends as those who know everything about you and still stick with you, and God is simply that friend to us. He knows everything about each of us, our strengths, and struggles, even our spiritually impoverished situations, and yet he loves and cares so much about us. He is constantly seeking a relationship with each of us despite letting him down many times. And that is why he wants us to relate to him in prayer to take care of us.
Jesus' teaching on prayer today is rooted in the idea that asking God for our needs must be most comfortable thing for us to do; simply ask. The word ask is elaborated as to mean, A-ask, B-seek, K- knock. Each of these words denotes similar action, one of continually pressing for something. And that is what Jesus meant when he related ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK to persistence.
Approaching God in a friendship context is meant to enable us to speak to him freely all the time and in every place. We don't have to care much about formality during prayer. What matters is trust and faith in the friend, and Jesus requires us to do that. Selective and well-chosen words do not define our relationship with God. So, if you pray once and don't receive an answer, pray again. Suppose you said a prayer in church and never receive the response, pray in your car on the way to work, church, or while running on the treadmill. We learn from the Lord that we can’t determine the timeframe and the exactness of our request, but we are guaranteed some form of response if we keep at it without losing heart.
Prayer blessing: Hail Holy Queen
Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To you we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy toward us; and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.