We’ve all heard the idiom “The squeaky wheel gets the oil (or grease.)” Different people around the world make the same point in a way that more typically represents their culture. For example, in China there is a saying “Babies who cry at night get more milk” (哭夜的孩子多吃奶.) But exactly what is the point? Most reasonable people would say that the more assertive you are and the more vocal you are, the more likely you’ll get your way all else being equal, whether it’s a doctor’s appointment, or an interview for a job. Or, perhaps a better price when buying a new car. or getting a seat on a different plane when your flight has been canceled. It’s not that we should be rude or arrogant, but just persistent when others might be too quick to give up. What, after all, do we have to lose? The worst someone can say is “No!”
And, again, it’s not like Jesus is encouraging us to be Kens or Karens. Being frantic, persistent or audacious is not the same as being a pain in the posterior or belligerent. There may be times when after boarding a plane, you find that your seat in coach is uncomfortable. If the other seats in coach are full, why not ask for a free upgrade to first class? Now, that’s audacious (but not unheard of.) Yet, whatever we do, we should always be respectful of others.
Parable of the person pounding on the door at night
In this parable which is not often mentioned in church or the religious literature, Jesus makes the same point. He relates in Luke 11:5ff:
Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need. ‘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; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.‘”
The words “shameless audacity” come from the Greek word in the passage ἀναίδειαν, which literally means “persistence, impudence, without regard to time, place, or person.” Expositor’s defines it as it as “the total disregard of domestic privacy and comfort shown by persistent knocking; very indecent from the point of view of the man in bed.” Note, too, that we have to initiate the process. We need to ask for something before it’s given. We need to seek something before we find it. We need to knock before the door is opened to us.
I think that many people believe that things are relatively easy when we ask God for something. We ask once or twice. Nothing happens and we give up. In fact, we may be overlooking something. Something like persistence, maybe.
When Jesus met the Gadarene who was possessed with numerous demons1, one of the demons addressed Jesus and his comments are related in Mark 5:7, 8:
7 He [the demon] shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” 8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”
You can see that the information verse 8 actually precedes verse 7. So, it would logically read that Jesus said to the demon to leave the person and afterwards the demon shouted at Jesus. Grammatically, the verb used in verse 8 is in the indefinite case which indicates that Jesus had to command the demon to leave not just once, but repeatedly. If he tried freeing the demoniac only once or twice, that might not have been enough.
Another instance where persistence paid off
In Chapter 10 of the book of Daniel, we read how the prophet Daniel had a troubling vision and for three weeks he prayed and fasted for an understanding of what he saw. All day and all night for twenty-one days all Daniel had was either water or bread and water as he sought to understand what God was communicating to him. After three weeks, the archangel Gabriel shows up and Daniel is like, “What kept you?” Gabriel assures Daniel that”
Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia.”
Jesus portrayed in this mosaic of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac from the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy. It dates to the early sixth century AD. Public domain/WikiCommons.
The word in Hebrew used here (לְנֶגְדִּי) suggests that the “king of Persia” detained Gabriel. How does a person detain an angel? Obviously, then, this king of Persia is not a person, but some spiritual force or being, and Gabriel had to send for reinforcements (Michael.) This might seem strange, that God’s will can be interfered with or resisted. In what way then is God all-powerful? This is just a guess, but the way I rationalize or explain this is to think about what are known as rules of engagement in geopolitics. For example, the U.S. has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world, to wipe out humanity. Yet, in spite of being the most powerful country in the world with unmatched power, our armed forces have taken beatings in Vietnam (58,220 killed in action); Afghanistan (2,402 KIA); Iraq (4,431 dead) and elsewhere. (e.g., Beirut, Lebanon (241.) In Mogadishu, Somalia in 1992 the bodies of dead American soldiers were dragged through the streets. Yet, for the sake of larger considerations (perhaps the continued existence of the human race), American policy is very circumspect about how we project our power. It may be that God has certain “rules of engagement” that he limits himself to at certain times. God promised Noah after the flood waters disappeared that “Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life” (Genesis 9:15.) Because God cannot lie or break His promises, this means that if the Earth is ever threatened in the future, it will not be by water (i.e., God cannot flood the planet.)
God is reasonable. Sometimes He changes his mind
A textbook example of God changing His mind in found in Genesis 18 when God in on the way to Sodom. He meets Abraham and tells him that he is enroute to destroy the city (including the sister city Gomorrah.) Abraham starts to panic. “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?” God agrees to spare the city if there are fifty righteous people in Sodom. That’s fifty out of how many? Estimates of the population of Sodom back then vary widly between 200 and more than 200,000. Personally, I would think there were perhaps between 8,000 and 12,000, though we have no way of knowing.
But Abraham starts running the numbers through his head and doubts that there are that many faithful Jews in Sodom. So, Abraham talks God down to 45, to 40, to 30, to 20 and finally to 10. God who had previously decided to destroy the city if he could not find fifty righteous people now gives humanity the benefit of the doubt and settles at 10. The fact that the cities were destroyed tells you how corrupt they were.
Then there was Jesus
In a recent post I mentioned the wedding feast at Cana before Jesus had started His ministry. Mary, likely knew by then that Jesus could do unusual things (and how many of us could hide stuff from our mom when we were growing up?) She told Jesus that the wedding hosts were running out of wine at the reception. The reason she mentioned it wasn’t to send him to the store for more, but for him to miraculously produce additional wine. She obviously and actually believed he could. He mentioned to her that He was reluctant to “out” Himself on that particular occasion, but He did what she asked. Perhaps–and I’m not a Catholic–this is one reason Catholics pray to Mary. It could be that they believe she can intercede with Jesus on their behalf because there remains a special place in His heart for His earthly mom?
Another instance where Jesus changes His mind is with the Canaanite woman. Matthew in Chapter 15:22ff preserves this account”
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.’ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’ The woman came and knelt before him. ‘Lord, help me!’ she said. He replied, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’ ‘Yes it is, Lord,” she said. ‘Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ Then Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment.”
This woman was not a Jew, and Jesus’ priority was as Messiah to Israel (eventually it was expanded to include anyone Jewish or not seeking grace.) Jesus’ metaphor with the use of the word “dog” was not exactly politically correct, but was employed so that his Jewish audience understood what he was saying. Again, had the woman just given up after being rebuffed the first time, there would have been no change in her circumstances. Then, again, it’s possible that Jesus was a bit harsh to see how committed she might be.
There are all sorts of misperceptions about prayer and how God responds to prayer. What I hoped to suggest in this post is that one should not give up with a certain prayer but “pester” God over it. Keep at it and see if the situation starts to change. Also, if it seems like the handwriting is on the wall and God does not appear interested in intervening, then talk to him about it as you would talk to another person. And give God an opportunity to answer you.
Footnotes
1Demons are creatures that are intelligent spirits without bodies. They are not the ghosts of the dead. The Bible does not identify their origins with certainty, but they may have been involved with the fallen angels described in Genesis chapter 6. However, demons are not fallen angels, themselves. Demons have names and personalities, though they often use their function as their name. Some are quite menacing, others have something of a sense of humor. They gain access to people in several ways, most commonly through sin. Other ways might be the worship of idols, or superstitious behavior, heinous and unnatural criminal acts. If a person repeats the same sin over and over and over again (such as lying), that person may eventually lose executive control over that area in their life and it become increasingly difficult for them to tell or even realize which is truthful and what is not. Demons do not always or often “possess” people. A more common form of harassment is oppression. Demons prefer not to be disembodied, which is why they asked Jesus to cast them into a nearby herd of pigs.
