Persistent Prayer: The True Meaning of the Friend at Midnight Parable

Have you ever felt like it was too late in the evening to call someone, so you just didn’t call?

Or have you ever been afraid to ask for something because you just knew you wouldn’t get it? Or because you didn’t want to feel rejection? Or you didn’t want to inconvenience anyone?

So instead of taking the risk, you just try your best to make do with what you already have. Or you ask for something smaller and more manageable.

Reaching out can make us feel vulnerable sometimes. It means both admitting that we need help, and at the same time opening ourselves up to the chance of being ignored, dismissed, or rejected.

But with God, it’s different.

And Jesus’s Parable of the Friend at Midnight in Luke 11:5-13 helps us understand that we can approach God anytime, anywhere, even if our reasons might seem too small, too specific, too personal, etc. He always wants to hear what’s on our hearts.

As the story shows us, if an earthly friend will give us what we need even in their imperfect humanity, how much more will God provide for us in His perfect love?

God has an earnest desire for a close relationship with us, and prayer is one of the ways we can share that with Him. To help us better understand this spiritual principle, we’ll look at:

• A walkthrough of the “Friend at Midnight” parable
• Why Jesus shared this story
• The meaning behind the parable
• What connecting with God through prayer means for us

Let’s start by reviewing the story itself.

A walkthrough of the parable in Luke 11

Also called the Parable of the Midnight Visitor, Jesus tells a story to His disciples about a person who goes to their friend’s house at midnight—a pretty crazy hour to be unexpectedly knocking on someone’s door.

The person asks the friend for some food for a visitor at their home, because they have nothing to serve them.

The friend responds from behind the closed door, “Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything” (Luke 11:7, CSB).

Jesus says that the friend actually does end up sharing some food…but not because they’re friends. It’s because the person was bold enough to even make such an audacious request at a ridiculous hour.

“Yet because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (verse 8, CSB).

Then Jesus follows that with what has become an often-quoted passages:

“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, NKJV).

In Jesus’ short explanation of the parable, He points out that a father would never give a stone to his son if his son asks for loaves of bread. And he wouldn’t give his son a snake if he asks for fish.

And then He ends the parable with a profound question:

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (verse 13, CSB).

The story is short, but rich and profound. Before we get into that, though, let’s first talk about why Jesus told this parable in the first place.

Why Jesus shared this story

During Jesus’ ministry, He often stepped away from the crowd and His disciples to pray alone. And in the verses right before this parable, Jesus is praying and communing with God.

When He’s finished, one of the disciples asks Jesus how to pray. Jesus responds by teaching the disciples what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2-4).

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” (Luke 11:2, NKJV).

Immediately after reciting this prayer, Jesus tells them the Parable of the Friend at Midnight.

And from this we understand that this parable is part of Jesus’ explanation about how to pray.

So, what can we learn about prayer from this somewhat strange story?

The meaning behind the Parable of the Friend at Midnight

Prayer is communication and communion with God. It’s an intimate act, a private conversation, where we both speak (or direct our thoughts) to God and listen for His response.

And from this parable, we learn that no matter what time it is, and no matter what we need, we can always go to God with our requests. Even the most ridiculous ones.

Go ahead, think of the most insane or impossible request that you have in your life right at this moment…you can bring that to God! He’ll hear you.

In fact, He knows that request is on your mind before you even say anything to Him.

Jesus says that “your Father knows what you need before you even ask Him” (Matthew 6:8, ESV).

Hmm…but If that’s true, what’s the point in asking Him, then?

And if He also knows how He’ll respond, why do we need to be persistent in prayer, like the friend from the parable?

How does being bold before God affect our relationship with Him? And why doesn’t He just give us what He knows we’re going to ask Him for before we even ask?

To fully be able to tackle these questions, let’s first talk about the context under which Jesus told the parable.

Context Matters

In many areas of Western culture, having an unexpected visitor at midnight might be considered a personal inconvenience, if not downright rude.

But Jesus told this parable in a culturally Eastern context that placed very high value on community hospitality.

Travel after dark was dangerous, so a visitor coming after midnight was unusual. But theologian and Bible scholar Craig S. Keener, Ph.D., notes that despite that hurdle, “the honor of the village would be at stake should hospitality fail to be extended.”¹

So even though the friend’s household was in bed for the night, he knew he, and his village, had something to lose if he didn’t respond to the neighbor at his door.

He may have even given his neighbor what he needed along with a “hmph,” or while muttering under his breath. But he still gave.

Midnight is not an hour that’s too late for God. And He has infinite emotional energy, so our persistence doesn’t tire Him out, like it does the man in the story. And it doesn’t annoy Him. He isn’t offended when we audaciously come to Him.

In fact, it makes Him happy when we come to Him. Because it means we chose Him and no one else before Him. And He knows He’s the One who can best provide you with the answer you need.

The persistence of asking

“Importunity” is one of those weird words that sometimes pop up when someone wants to sound smart. But in this case, the principle of importunity is actually super helpful to understand. It’s often highlighted by scholars when they review this parable.

“Importunity” is used in the King James version: “…yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth” (Luke 11:8).

The Greek word is anaideia² and it only occurs once in the New Testament. It means “shamelessness, impudence,” and in other ancient literature it means “lack of sensitivity to what is proper.”³

(Surely, when reading that definition…we can think of at least someone in our lives that has demonstrated those qualities!)

But the meaning of this word sort of changes the image we have of the person knocking on his friend’s door at midnight. He’s not just knocking…he’s knocking incessantly, shamelessly, some might even say obnoxiously…in the middle of the night…at a home where he surely knows everyone is already in bed. His persistent knocking could even be disturbing other neighbors.

And Jesus says that this shameless audacity of the friend as he’s knocking is actually the reason he gets what he needs.

But God doesn’t see importunity toward Him as rude. He sees it as just another way to connect with us.

So ask, yes, but keep asking.

Seek, absolutely, but keep seeking.

Knock, 100%, but keep knocking.

Ask, seek, and knock…even without modesty. Because that couldn’t matter less when it comes to praying to the infinite, all-knowing, all-loving God.

God answers our prayers with His presence and His influence. Even (or maybe even especially!) the importunate ones. Because that means all our pride or self-importance or fear of judgment is not getting in the way of opening ourselves up to Him.

God loves us fiercely, with everything that He is (which is love, as per 1 John 4:7-8), and this parable shows us that He invites us to come to Him with that same energy—with everything we’ve got.

Now compare this picture of God and prayer to how the Pharisees likely taught. We can get insight on this from another parable Jesus told, which compared a tax collector’s humble prayer of forgiveness to the public “prayer” of a Pharisee…who thanked God that they weren’t as bad of a sinner as others (Luke 18:9-14).

It almost seems like the Pharisees felt they had to present a case to God as to why their prayers are worthy of being heard. And if that’s how they felt they had to pray…how often do you think they would open up the darkest corners of their minds toward God? How often do you think they shamelessly approached God with what was really on their hearts?

So Jesus made it clear that there’s no need for us to hold back when it comes to praying to Him. In the space of private prayer between an individual and God, there are no prescribed codes of conduct, no hoops to jump through, no prerequisite qualifications of worthiness. We can come as we are.

The parent-child relationship

Jesus also calls attention to the parent-child relationship in this parable when He’s explaining it to His disciples.

“What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” (Luke 11:11-12, CSB).

What father, indeed! It’d be pretty treacherous even for a bad parent to give his son something that completely opposes what he truly needs.

This hyperbole, or exaggerated statement, is meant to point out the obvious—that a parent’s love for their children runs pretty deep. And requests from their children are opportunities for parents to express that love.

Does that mean children will get everything they ask for? No!

But a loving parent wants to see joy in their child’s life. A loving parent wants to see their child fed, and protected, and taken care of. A loving parent would give their child food even if it meant they themselves had to miss a meal. And that’s how deep love runs in the kind of parent-child relationship that God wants with us.

He wants us to feel so confident in His love for us that we boldly come to Him for anything (Hebrews 4:16), knowing He will absolutely provide what we need.

He says, “Don’t worry. You can trust Me. Just ask Me.”

But then there’s a bit of a cliffhanger in the parable. Jesus says ask, seek, and knock, but it doesn’t specifically say what we’ll get from this exchange. So let’s go into that.

What will we get when we ask, seek, and knock?

Jesus doesn’t say we’ll get exactly what we ask for when we ask….or that we’ll find exactly what we were looking for…or that the door we were knocking on is the one that will be opened.

Do we sometimes get exactly what we were asking for, and seeking? Sure. But how much more often do we get more than what we were expecting? Or something we didn’t even conceive of? How often are we surprised when the door that’s opened isn’t the door we were focusing on, but it’s one that leads to something even better?

Pastor John Nixon, II, Ph.D., brings something important to our attention when he asks, “When we ask and seek and knock, is there something larger that we find in our pursuit of a relationship with God?”

When we “Take delight in the Lord, He will give you your heart’s desires” (Psalm 37:4, CSB), and “there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25, ESV).

Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13, ESV).

When we go to God for everything, no matter how big or small, and He starts to change us, our desire to be with Him grows. To be like Him. To want the things He wants—love, compassion, joy, peace, etc. And when that happens, our relationship with Him deepens. And we get so much more than we bargained for.

We get Him. He is our “daily bread” (Matthew 6:9-13).

What connecting with God through prayer means for us

Connecting with God emboldens us. It removes our fear, our shame, and our spiritual hang-ups. It stretches our imagination because…why not ask for impossibilities? Why not be persistent in prayer with Him?

The worst that can happen is that, in His infinite wisdom and love for us, He redirects us. And the best that can happen is we are changed, and our desire for and relationship with Him grows exponentially.

To the point where our confidence in Him is so strong that He’s always the first one we turn to.

This kind of continual communion with God helps us learn some important truths along the way.

Nothing is beneath God in terms of asking

Sometimes we save the “big stuff” for Him in prayer, but don’t really ask for those other little things because we think it’s too trivial. So why bother Him with it?

Or we might feel like we’re asking from a selfish perspective, so we don’t ask God.

The parable of the friend at midnight shows us another view. Jesus is really saying, “What do you really want? What do you really think? Let’s go straight to that.”

Even if we feel like it’s too late to ask for something, or that we shouldn’t ask at all, He still comes to the door to respond to us, just like the friend who got out of his bed to answer the door in this parable.

We can also get past the shame of feeling bad about asking God fpr something that we just want for ourselves.

It might help to remind ourselves that prayer isn’t an ask/answer transactional procedure. Asking will likely happen during prayer, but that’s not what prayer is.

Prayer is the establishing of a connection. It’s opening up the line. It’s inviting God to be with you in your own mind, intentionally sharing each part of it. And sometimes, prayer happens without any words spoken at all (Romans 8:26-27).⁴

So “asking” will naturally come up in prayer because we are willingly revealing our innermost thoughts and desires to Him. But it’s only part of the whole interaction.

When we open up to God, we are claiming Him as our refuge.

Communing with God is relational, not transactional

When we’re grabbing something at the store, we might not say hello to the cashier as we’re checking out, or even look up from our phone. After all, we’re just here for some eggs so we can finish baking the cake we started at home.

And in that context, it’s completely appropriate to grab what we need and go so we can hurry home and move on with our lives.

But this was never supposed to be a model for our relationship with God. He was never supposed to be a magic genie or a divine vending machine where we pay something or do some ritual, and then get something in return.

That’s why He says “Come to me” (Matthew 11:28), without anything attached to it. He doesn’t want anything to get in the way of a genuine, authentic relationship with us, including what we might want or need. So we can come with anything.

But if we come to Him just to get something from Him, it minimizes what our relationship with Him can actually be. It strips the intimacy right out and turns it into a transaction between a customer and a cashier.

He wants our relationship with Him to be, well, a relationship. A real one. He wants to know us, and He wants us to know Him. And that begins with just spending time with Him, even if that means we initially come to him with a whole load of questions and requests.

When prayer becomes primarily about the relationship, we might find that we get what we want all of the time, because He is who we want, and He delights in our joy.

Persistence in prayer pays off

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

This whole “importunate neighbor” anecdote, as short and simple as it is, teaches us that being persistent in prayer pays off in ways we might not expect.

At the start, it’s less about focusing on our motives and more about building the habit of going to God for everything.

He becomes our first stop—instead of our last stop after we’ve tried everything we could do on our own.

The moment prayer becomes more about the person of Jesus Christ, everything is elevated. We’re more at peace, more joyful, more confident in Him, more in love with Him.

And we’re more fulfilled because we’re getting so much more from Him when our desires align with His. We’re getting more of what He wanted for us in the first place.

And it all begins with transparency and persistence.

Just ask Him. Whatever it is, ask. And when you’ve done that, keep on asking. No matter what the “answer” is, it’s still the beginning of a conversation between you and God. And being honest with God (which also means honest with yourself) about what you really want is the first step in understanding the bigger picture.

Although this parable isn’t the most popular of Jesus’ parables, it leaves us with something profound: God wants us to come to Him just as we are, right now. There is absolutely no reason we need to be afraid to do so.

If you’re interested in learning more about prayer,

1. Keener, Craig S. “Notes from Luke,” NIV Cultural Study Bible, p. 1769. [↵]
2. “G335 – anaideia – Strong’s Greek Lexicon (kjv).” Blue Letter Bible. [↵]
3. Grudem, Wayne, PhD, and Thomas Schreiner, PhD. “Notes on Luke,” ESV Study Bible, pg. 1978. [↵]
4. See also Psalm 62:8; 139:23-24; 145:18; Jeremiah 29:12-13; John 15:4; Ephesians 3:16-19; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; James 4:8; 1 Peter 5:7. [↵]

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