A couple weeks ago, Lindsey lost a tooth. I mean, she really lost it.
Her tooth had fallen out at school, and the school nurse gave her a tiny plastic treasure chest to put the tooth in. When the neighbor brought Lindsey home, Lindsey came bounding up the steps to show me her treasure. The only problem was that when she opened the treasure chest, the tooth was no longer there.
We glanced quickly all around the porch, but no tooth. We traveled Lindsey’s route backwards to the neighbor’s driveway, but still we didn’t see the tooth. We asked the neighbor to look in her truck, but she didn’t see the tooth either.
Lindsey was crushed.
I made her come in and do her homework, because despite her grief, it had to be done. After she finished, Lindsey asked if she could search some more outside for the tooth. I agreed, and I helped her search. We all did. But no tooth.
Have you ever tried to search for a tiny, white tooth in a gravel driveway that had lots of small, white rocks, or in a yard that also had plenty of small, white rocks? We did. And we didn’t find it.
We still hadn’t found it by the time my husband came home from work. He helped look, and he didn’t find it either. Suppertime came, and I made Lindsey stop searching and come inside. She came obediently, but the minute supper was over, back outside she went, searching. “God, please let me find it,” I heard her praying over and over. “Please.”
I prayed too. In fact, we all prayed for Lindsey to find her tooth. Then I went back outside to help her search. It was getting dark. I was getting hopeless. Once again, we traveled the path between the neighbor’s driveway and our front porch without finding it. And then….
“Would you please ask your mom if we can look in y’all’s truck again?” I asked the neighbor girl, who was helping us search.
She went back inside, and soon I heard the locks on the truck click open. We began to search, Lindsey and me on one side, Gisselle on the other. “Is this your tooth?” Gisselle said suddenly, extending something toward Lindsey.
Lindsey took the object. She examined it. “Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed, wrapping the surprised Gisselle in a huge hug. “And thank you, God!”
Thank you, God, I prayed silently. You cared, and you answered.
The woman who was searching for a lost coin or the shepherd searching for a lost sheep (see Luke 15 for both stories) had nothing on Lindsey. She searched more than diligently, refusing to give up. She just kept searching and praying until it was found.
You and I would do well to be as diligent as Lindsey in pursuing our requests of God—to refuse to give up. It is true that God sometimes says ‘no’ to our requests. But when He hasn’t said no, we need to keep asking.
Too often, we don’t ask all that diligently because we don’t have much faith that God is going to do anything about our problem. We know that He can decline to grant our requests, and we figure He probably will. So we don’t ask all that hard. We ask a couple of times and then give up. Oh well, we tried. But Jesus says that isn’t the way we’re supposed to do it.
In Luke 18, Jesus tells the story of a judge who didn’t fear God or care about any of the people coming before him. Yet there was one poor woman who kept coming to the judge asking for justice—for him to do something. And the judge thought to himself (I’m paraphrasing here), I better just help her, or she’s going to wear me out by coming before me all the time! So he granted her request.
Jesus then made the point that if a mere man will help someone who keeps asking, how much more ready is God to help those who ask Him!
Again, it’s true that God sometimes says no. Sometimes, He says ‘wait’. But there are other times when we could have so much more than what we have if we would just ask for it, and keep asking.
What is there in your life that you need desperately? Are you asking God for it, or have you given up? My friend, don’t give up until God says ‘no’. Don’t put yourself in the position of missing out on something you could have had just because you gave up too soon.
Keep asking.
James 4:2b—You do not have, because you do not ask. (ESV)
Luke 18:1—Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. (NIV)