Only when I pray is a short series of thought-provoking reflections based loosely around the theme of prayer as found in Luke 11:1-13.

Today’s reading is taken directly from Luke 11:5-8 but we’ll dip into one other scripture as we go through.

Then He said to them, ”Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves [of bread]; for a friend of mine who is on a journey has just come to visit me, and I have nothing to serve him’; and from inside he answers, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything just because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence and boldness he will get up and give him whatever he needs.” The Amplified Bible

Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this illustration: ”Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You would shout up to him, ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit and I’ve nothing to give him to eat.’ He would call down from his bedroom, ‘Please don’t ask me to get up. The door is locked for the night and we are all in bed. I just can’t help you this time.’ “But I’ll tell you this—though he won’t do it as a friend, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you everything you want—just because of your persistence.” The Living Bible

Up to this point in our series Jesus had given the disciples only guidelines of how they should pray and some advice on the subject matter they should include in prayer. Here, however, in Luke 5-8 Jesus paints an interesting illustration of persistence by way of a deeper example of how to pray. This leads on in the following verses to where Jesus highlights three areas of persistence which are: in our asking, our looking and knocking – but we’ll get to those in a few days.

Listen now to today’s song, Don’t bother me.

I’m sure that you, like me, would not want to be woken up from your beauty sleep by someone pounding on the front door. It’s frightening for a start, to be wakened out of your sleep. You might wonder why the man in this illustration got up and went to the window. Short answer, he had to see who it was and to get them to stop making such a racket. What would you do under these circumstances? You would, of course get up – if only to stop the banging - but you’d be getting up rather reluctantly to put it mildly and with a grunt and a groan and you would probably fling the bedclothes back in a fit of annoyance.

In this illustration the man’s response to his noisy, annoying friend was, “Don’t bother me,” and probably in a pitiful, have-some-courtesy-toward-me sort of voice. “For goodness sake! Please don’t be asking me to get up at this time of the night. Come back in the morning and I’ll sort you out - but quit that banging, the neighbours will be ragin’.” But still the banging continued and this, in my thinking, is not only sheer rudeness from the man at the door toward a friend, it’s downright disrespectful to all of the man’s neighbours.

How does that make you feel toward the man at the door? A bit angry at the impudence? And yet, this is what Jesus tells us to do – be persistent. Of course, this is an illustration Jesus is using – it is not a real incident, but He’s making the point that persistence in prayer is key and that will get you what you want.

Being persistent at something is tomorrow’s topic and so, for today, let’s think more from the perspective of the man in bed - the man being bothered.

Put yourselves in his shoes (or slippers as it was night time), how many times have you been crudely wakened out of a sleep either by someone at the door or the phone ringing - what did that feel like? I’m sure you were dazed, confused, with your heart pounding. You put the light on and get blinded. You would have been under-dressed, in your jammies! Hair a mess, no make-up on (ladies most likely), bleary-eyed and looking completely dishevelled and startled out of your night’s sleep.

This leads me to think about how willing we really are to help someone. “I am, absolutely,” I hear you say. “Of course I’m prepared to help my friend with whatever they need.” But in all honestly, how far will our willingness really stretch? Anything? Anytime? Or, is there a limit to our help, will it stretch only as far as when it’s convenient for us? Mmm, yeah! Probably. And yet, how many times have we told our friends, “If there’s ever anything you need, just give me a call.” Did we mean that included midnight when we were in bed sleeping?

What does it take for us to be at the tipping point between helping and couldn’t be bothered? I would suggest we all have that tipping point, but let’s hope we never have to find out.

The song today is a direct observation of the scripture – I didn’t drift too far off the topic when I wrote it, but I did wonder what it was like to reach that tipping point between telling your friend to sling his hook and getting up to help willingly.

We should help a friend when it’s convenient and when it’s not convenient in whatever circumstances arise. Your willingness to be bothered may impact your friend’s motivation the next time you’re the one who needs their help when it’s not convenient for them.

Although today’s song is entitled, Don’t bother me – I think the message for us today is to be bothered.