Shameless Persistence
Ultrasound day. As a parent, it is one of the most exciting times during pregnancy. That morning, we dropped our two-year-old off at a friend’s house and headed to the doctor’s office. We traversed the stairs to the third floor of the outdoor medical park and entered a rather sterile doctor’s office. My husband walked to the counter to check us in as I sat and rested my swollen feet and exhausted, sweaty, pregnant body after the rather arduous journey we had just taken from the parking lot in the balmy Phoenix summer sun. After a few minutes a young woman called my name. I can remember butterflies dancing in my belly alongside my child as my anticipation grew. I was about to see my baby for the very first time.
We walked into a dark room, small and cold. The young woman gave me a gown and instructed me to change and lay on a the exam table. The butterflies danced on. I squeezed my husband’s hand. A few minutes later she returned, and the ultrasound began. But just as quickly as it began it was over. Only a few minutes into what was to be one of the highlights of our pregnancy, the ultrasound tech froze, and her face turned from anticipation to despondence. At that moment, the butterflies stopped dancing and it was as if I had been punched firmly in the gut, knocking all of the air not only out of my lungs, but out of the room itself. “Stay there,” she said solemnly, “I need to go get a doctor.”
In Luke 11, Jesus’s disciples ask Him to teach them how to pray. In response to their request, Jesus teaches them what we have come to know as “The Lord’s Prayer.”
“Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”
This being a model for prayer, we understand that Christ’s words here and in Matthew’s parallel account are not to become a rote formula by which we pray, but a pattern, which if followed, can lead to a flourishing prayer life.
Immediately following His teaching on the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells His disciples a parable, further expanding their understanding of the nature of prayer, and the posture in which they ought to pray. In the parable, a man goes to his friend’s house in the middle of the night asking to borrow bread to feed a friend who has arrived from a long journey. The friend replies from within his house, “Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.” Jesus says that he won’t get up and give the man anything simply because he is his friend. Then Jesus makes a very interesting statement, “yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.”
Impudence. That’s an interesting word, and not one we hear every day. Here in Luke’s gospel is the only place this word is used in scripture. It implies shameless persistence and unembarrassed boldness. The impudent person is not halted by human fears, but even when others cry, “overdone,” or accuse them of being extreme or excessive, they persist. This is the type of person that Jesus says catches His ear in prayer.
To further drive home His point in Luke 11, Jesus commands His disciples in verse 9, “…ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” The verbal commands in these verses are all in the present imperative tense, which means they are meant to be read as ongoing, continual action. In other words, they could be read like this, keep continually asking, keep continually seeking, keep continually knocking… be impudent.
The ultrasound tech came back into the room after what seemed to be hours, though only a few minutes had lapsed. She and the doctor turned to themselves the grey toned screen that had once faced us to share joy filled pictures, but now became to them an inquiry board meant to shield us from whatever horrible tidings they would soon reveal. They studied it, sharing whispers and nods, all the while the hole in my gut grew. Finally, they broke their silence.
“Trisomy 18,” the doctor said. At that moment, I had no idea what those words meant, though I soon would. He went on to explain to us that our child had a very rare chromosomal disorder in which the two halves of the brain do not connect. The markers were all there, clenched fists and feet, underdevelopment of the fetus, plus they could see clearly that the baby’s brain was not connected. His words were cold and unemotional. I was heartbroken and afraid. He continued, “There is a very rare chance that your baby will live to gestation. And even if that were to happen, there is an even rarer chance the baby could survive outside the womb. We recommend you terminate the pregnancy.” Terminate the pregnancy. I can still hear the doctor’s voice pronouncing my child’s death sentence.
It’s not every day you hear words like that; words that have the potential to shake your faith to the core, to refine it through the fires of heartache and trials and see if what comes out the other side is of lasting value. “Trisomy 18…Terminate the Pregnancy.” Through our shock, we told the doctor we would not be ending the life of our child. He rolled his callous eyes and told us we could come back in a month and see for ourselves that nothing had changed and reevaluate the situation then. He turned to walk out of the room… “Doctor, can you tell us the gender of our baby?” my husband asked. “Oh, it’s a boy.”
When you think about the idea of impudence, do you wonder why? Why would God desire us to pray in this way? Does He not hear the first time? Is He being cosmically cruel or sadistic? He says in Matthew 6:8 that the Father knows what we need before we ask Him. So, if this is the case, why ought we to pray in this way? I think Jesus gives us a clue at the end of a parable He tells in Luke 18. Wrapping up the parable, Jesus promises a response to His people’s persistent prayer, and then He says, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” You see, when we pray with such persistence, it is not because God needs to be reminded so many times of our need, or even at all. He already knows. The point is, that it is the very act of persistence, the practice of waiting and asking that both demonstrates and develops the kind of faith that honors the Lord. That is what He is after. James speaks to this in his epistle, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)
I can’t say that my life has been consistently marked by this type of prayer, but I can say that when it has been, the Lord has moved on my behalf and on behalf of those for whom I have prayed. The outcome hasn’t always been what I imagined, the timeline hasn’t always lined up with my plans, but the Lord has always been faithful to answer when I have asked, to show Himself when I have sought, and to open the door when I have knocked.
Jesus could have emphasized any of a number of important aspects of prayer when His disciples asked to be taught how to pray, but He chose to emphasize this shameless persistence. That ought to cause us to stop and take notice. May our impudence be discernable as we cry to Him day and night in matters of daily life and in life’s most challenging circumstances. And may He find in us faith, faith that keeps continually asking, seeking, and knocking, knowing that He desires to give good gifts to His children.
We left the doctor’s office that day, sorrowful, yet determined to trust the Lord and pray. And pray we did. There have been several seasons of our life marked by prayer, this being one. We invited a few trusted friends and family members to pray and trust with us, and for a month we cried out to the Lord. We begged Him to heal and save the life of our sweet baby boy. We also echoed the words of the three Hebrew boys in Daniel 3, who declared their faith in the Lord’s ability to deliver them from the fiery furnace, yet at the same time, admitted their trust in His sovereign plan with the words, “but even if He does not deliver us…” We knew that even if God did not heal our son, He was still a good Father and that His plans for our lives and our child’s life were beyond our understanding. So, we prayed hard, we trusted, we waited, and our faith grew. Impudence.
The day we were to return to the doctor, the butterflies returned. It was even hotter in the Arizona desert as we climbed those three flights of stairs. We waited in the same waiting room and the same young woman called my name and led me back to the same small, dark, cold room. She left the room and returned with the doctor who promptly began the ultrasound. The butterflies danced wildly, with a mixture of both fear and faith-filled anticipation. Suddenly, the doctor stopped. “I cannot believe this,” he said, stunned by what he saw on his screen. “Your baby’s brain is… perfectly normal. I don’t know what happened.” “We do,” we declared confidently, as we shared with him the details of our previous month. Impudence.
[Guest post by Ryan Bailey]
