When your Friend Says No

Saturday 28 May
READ: Luke 11:5-10
MORE LESSON: Luke 18:1-7

There are three lessons to learn from the Scripture reading today about relationships.

1) Answer to request from dear friends may not be instant, although true friends are not known to refuse each other's request in very difficult circumstance. The passage reveals that there would be times when dear friends could be at a crossroads in attending to one another's needs. Let it be registered in your heart this day that there could be times in your life that dear friends may answer you from within; they will neither come out to see you nor refuse to open the door for you to come into their houses. When you are at such a crossroads, you must manage the situation with wisdom. Some people easily get pissed off, go away angrily from their friend and destroy the relationship while others may plan vengeance against their friend. This passage shows that there is a way to get as much as you want from a friend even if he initially does not intend to grant your request.

2) Sometimes you carry the burdens of others, which become very tasking and humiliating. The friend who was making a request at midnight was doing so because a friend of his came to him at an odd hour. The friend came at a time when he had nothing to set before him. Wanting to meet the need of his friend, he went to another friend of his, and that one answered from within: 'Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and attend to you’. What do you do when you are humiliated for seeking to help someone? Do you give it up or refrain from pursing the good to a logical conclusion? To what extent can you go in pursuing other people's needs even when you are being insulted?

3) When this friend was refused at first instance, he did not give up. He did not consider his friend's remark as insolence; he kept knocking and pleading. Jesus thereafter remarked that though he would not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs (Luke 11:8).

When you persist on your request, you will get as much as you need. Whatever you may not get based on relationship is very possible with persistence. Know for sure that the toughest of men will give in to your request in the face of persistence. This was the message Jesus passed across in Luke 18:1-5. Next time someone says no to your critical request, don't be perturbed, rude or frustrated. Don't give in to compromise; only be persistent in righteousness, So I say to you, 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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened : Luke 11:9-10.

Prayer/Action
* Lord, help me to persist in righteousness until my answer comes.
* Dear Lord, help me to be a true friend who stands for others in their critical hour of need.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
From henceforth, I shall not labour in vain nor bring forth for trouble, in the name of Jesus.