Article September 13, 1975 Issue

Persistent Prayer-Key to Demonstration

MERVIN M. ROLAND

A disciple of Christ Jesus once asked him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." Luke 11:1; Jesus then gave them that marvelously complete statement of affirmation and supplication known as the Lord's Prayer, of which Mrs. Eddy gives the spiritual interpretation on pages 16 and 17 of Science and Health.

In Luke's account, Jesus follows his model prayer with an illuminating illustration of what is required if one expects to have his prayer answered: "Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." vv. 5–8; "Because of his importunity"—in other words, because he persists!

What can we infer from Jesus' teaching? The man had gone to one from whom he could most expect aid and had been refused. "Go away," his friend had said, in effect, through his locked and inhospitable door. Then to lend some reason to his unreasonableness, "The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed."

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