Shameless Audacity
By Lisa Boyer
“In Him and through
faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”
Ephesians 3:12 (NIV)
Have you ever read part of the Bible
for what seems like the 100th time, yet see something for the first
time? That happened to me recently….
I was reading Luke chapter 11 where
the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus does so and then He
continues with:
“…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” (Luke 11:5-8).
Wait a minute! That story is about
prayer? Somehow, this was the first time I understood it to be part of the
answer to the disciples question about how to pray. Was I to be praying with
shameless audacity?
Perhaps a little back story might
help: I was in the middle of a yearlong battle with physical pain and had been
wrestling with how I should be praying and if I should “bother” continuing to
ask others to pray for me. God already knew my need. I’d asked. Others had
asked on my behalf. The fact that I still had pain made it seem as though God
had chosen not to listen. Did I really need to ask again?
So there I was, short on faith,
reading “…because of your shameless audacity he will surely…” Praying this way
wasn’t the way I wanted to talk to my Heavenly Father, but I read those verses
again and thought if this is part of how Jesus was instructing the disciples,
then I was going to begin to pray with shameless audacity and ask others to
pray for me that way as well.
Permission to continually cry out to
God has somehow liberated me and given me more confidence in Him. I went from
meekly going to God with my needs and the needs of others, to going to Him with
the freedom and confidence of Ephesians 3:12.
There are so many verses about praying
continually: 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Colossians 1:9, 2 Thessalonians
1:11, Romans 12:12, Isaiah 62:6b, 1 Thessalonians 1:2, Romans 1:9-10. I don’t know how I lost sight of it.
GOING
DEEPER:
1.
How’s your prayer life?
FURTHER READING:
Click on any of the verses in the last
paragraph.
Lisa is married to Ted and they have
two sons in college. She serves in Quest 56 on Sunday mornings at Oakwood.
