When I was a kid I had a prayer that I'd say every night. I'm not sure if it stemmed from me being a testosterone filled little boy or if it's because I saw the movie, "The Clash of the Titans" one too many times, but, for some reason, every night I'd pray that in the morning I'd wake up to find armor in my room. I wanted a breastplate, a helmet, a sword, and a shield.

So every night I'd pray and trust in the morning that God would have delivered and, morning after morning I'd wake up disappointed that my prayers hadn't been answered. My disappointment would only increase when I'd hear passages like Luke 11:1-13 where Jesus teaches on prayer, after all, I was asking, seeking, and knocking, but I wasn't being answered, I wasn't finding, and the door certainly wasn't being opened. Over time I began to wonder if God was actually evening listening.

We all have moments in our lives where we're forced to wonder if God is listening to our prayers. Maybe it's a prayer for a new job or a promotion that would enable us to provide a better life for our family, but interview after interview proves fruitless or we're consistently passed over come promotion time.

Or maybe the prayer centers on a relationship that's grown distant over time. You've grown apart, your interests have changed, and you just don't make each other happy anymore. You desperately pray that something would happen to make things how they used to be, but even with your most fervent prayers, nothing seems to change.

I know one of prayers on my mind has been a ten year old girl named Kennedy who's in the midst of 40 weeks of chemo and is preparing to have three ribs removed because cancer has invaded the bones of her young body. Hundreds of us keep praying that the cancer would vanish, that her beautiful red hair would return, and that she'd be free to run and swim and play. But even with all of our prayers the cancer remains and the treatments continue.

So is God actually listening to our prayers? In Luke 11 Jesus offers an emphatic yes as he tells two similar stories to get his point across. The first is one of the most misunderstood parables in all of Scripture. This misunderstanding is the result of a word with multiple meanings that has often been rendered as "persistence". With this translation we're given the impression that a man comes to his neighbors house in the middle of the night asking for bread, the neighbor refuses, and so the man harps on his neighbor until he gets what he wants. But there's a much better way to understand the parable.

Jesus opens the story with the phrase, "Which of you ..." and then goes on to flesh out the situation of the man coming to his neighbor at midnight. This opening makes it clear that Jesus is asking a question and he's expecting the people to have either a positive or negative answer. If we consider the culture of the day, the expected answer is obviously negative, after all, in that time and place, a guest of one person in the village was the guest of the entire village and courtesy demanded that a guest be given something to eat. To not provide the meal for a guest of the village would be shameful so, even if your neighbor was your enemy, you'd still provide the meal out of your desire to not bring shame on the community (which fits one meaning of that troublesome word).

In other words, Jesus says, "Can you imagine a neighbor offering excuses like the door being bared and the children being in bed?" and the people responded, "Absolutely not!" to which Jesus links prayer asking, "Can you imagine God not listening to your prayers?" The expected answer once again is, "Absolutely not!"

We see the same pattern in the second story where sinful earthly fathers still seek to give good gift to their children so, to an even greater degree, we can count on our perfect and loving Heavenly Father, who sacrificed his own Son that we might be his children, to give good gifts to those who call on his name.

But if God is not only listening but answering, how do we explain the job that doesn't come, the relationship that hangs by a thread, and Kennedy's cancer? The key is in what we pray for. Jesus opens this teaching by offering what is now known as the Lord's Prayer. As we look at Jesus' words, they have a decidedly different tone than our own. Rather than being centered on our wants and desires, Jesus calls our prayers to center on God and, when we pray this way, our view of the world around us radically changes.

Rather than worrying about the promotion or the new job, we can celebrate God's provision of our daily bread and ask for strength to reject society's call to keep up with the Joneses and replace it with a life that reflects our dependence upon God. Rather than giving into temptation of walking away when a relationship sours, we can find the strength to hold fast to a life of loving service to our spouse, again defying cultures call to pursue happiness for a life that reflects our faith. And as we sit in a cancer ward with a 10-year old girl, we can hear share with other children and their parents of her Savior who gives hope during the worst of times and watch the Kingdom of God come into their lives.

I can even realize that I was given my armor ... the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:10-20).