Persistent Asking, Seeking and Knocking

Now, when my prayers go unanswered and I am tempted to resent those on my prayer list, I seek the face of the Lord Jesus. I began listening. The Holy Spirit shows me what Jesus is doing and He gives me new insights into how to pray. There is a relationship between asking, seeking and knocking in prayer. I find myself seeking intimacy with the Lord Jesus when I began to feel emotions of resentment. The Spirit of God gives me new insights into how to pray, as I wait and listen. The negative cycle of defeat in prayer is broken. I begin experiencing answers to prayer more regularly, as the Spirit leads me to pray persistently. Through the years, the Lord has taught me that:

1. Asking - is making requests of the Father for the things we need.
2. Seeking - is pursuing oneness/intimacy with Jesus and the Father and listening for what God is saying and doing.
3. Knocking - is interceding for the transformation of a life, a family, a church, a city or a nation.

There is a relationship between all three of these kinds of prayer that ebbs and flows from one to the other as the Spirit leads. In 2 Corinthians 12:8, Paul says that, “...three times [he] pleaded with the Lord,” to take away a thorn in the flesh. This is the Apostle Paul writing these words while in Ephesus. God did extraordinary miracles through Paul in Ephesus, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and they were cured and the evil spirits left them. Yet, God did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh from him. Paul prayed three times. He may have pleaded with God three times in one season of prayer or in three separate seasons of prayer. We don’t know how long of a period he prayed. It could have been for one hour or one day or seven days or even forty days. The Scriptures don’t make it clear. I believe Paul asked the Father to heal him during one season of prayer. When he didn’t get healed, he sought the Lord’s face to understand what He was doing. Not receiving any new insight, the Apostle entered into a second season of prayer. When there was no answer to his pleading with God, Paul sought the face of the Lord in a new way to hear what He was doing. Hearing no word from the Father, Paul entered into a third season of petition for his own healing. When that season of prayer was over, the Apostle sought the Lord’s face for a third time. It was at that time the Lord spoke to him and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” In this example of Paul, we observe the relationship between the three natures of prayer in persistent asking, seeking, and knocking.