We were asleep in bed when the urgent knocking at our front door started, startling us and leaving us a bit scared. When I went to the door, turned on the porch light, and looked out the window I saw the familiar face of a rattled and distraught father of one of the teenagers from our youth group. It is said that desperate times call for desperate measures, and this dad’s desperation had led him to us in the middle of the night, looking for some immediate guidance and direction.

Earlier in the evening, his teenaged son had made a series of poor choices, and now he was facing felony charges after being taken into police custody. It was all unexpected, which added to the feeling all of us felt, a feeling that could best be summarized as “What do we do now??” It wasn’t the first time during my youth ministry years that a desperate and blind-sided parent had reached out. Neither was it the last. To be honest, there would be times with my own four kids where some measure of childhood foolishness would result in our own desperate need to respond as parents with wisdom and grace. While the circumstances may differ, we all know what it’s like to be at that place where we need parenting help with the next step. We urgently cry out to God, “Help us!”

Jesus once told his disciples a parable about a man who went and knocked on his friend’s door, looking for help at midnight. In this particular case, the man needed some food to set before a guest who had arrived. To have nothing to serve a guest was a major oversight in hospitality during Jesus’ day. The neighbor answers from within, telling the knocker that his door is shut, he’s in bed, and his children are sleeping. “Do not bother me,” he says. But Jesus goes on to say that persistence of the one who is needy will cause a friend to get up, answer the door, and meet the need. Jesus then issues a call to persistence in prayer for those who have need. Why? Because our loving Heavenly Father will not withhold those gifts He deems necessary for us in our moment of need. Having just told his disciples what to pray (Luke 11:1-4), Jesus was now using this story to teach them how to pray (Luke 11:5-13).

In his classic book, With Christ In The School of Prayer (1885), Andrew Murray helps us to understand just what it was that Jesus was teaching his disciples in this story, then and now, about boldness in prayer. Murray says that the parable is “a perfect storehouse of instruction in regard to true intercession.” The truths Jesus taught his disciples about prayer are the same truths that needed to be tapped after that first late-night knock of desperation, in the knocks that happened since, and in our own time of need as we parent our children and teens.

First, Murray tells us that there is a love which seeks to help others and ourselves in times of need. We have a loving Father who wants us to come knocking, no matter the circumstance or time of day.

Second, we need to engage our Heavenly Father with cries of honesty, telling Him the specifics of our need. We should not be hesitant to state and express the desires and needs which He already knows.

Third, we must have a confidence that help is on its way. God is not one who refuses to answer the door. Rather, He is a friend who knows how to give good and necessary gifts to His children, and desires to do so.

Fourth, there may be an unexpected refusal to answer the door in the way and time that we expect. God’s will and way is not our will and way, and we must trust in His providence and sovereignty. He knows and gives what’s best, while withholding what’s worst, in each and every situation.

Fifth, Jesus tells his disciples about a persistence and perseverance that takes no refusal. In fact, the kind of persistence we need to show in prayer is one that goes on to the point of annoyance. Perhaps the best way to understand this is to think about the kind of relentless persistence a child has in asking for something he/she wants. God requires this kind of single-minded persistence from us!

And finally, we need to expect the reward of such a persistent prayer, specifically how God “will give him as much as he needs.” Jesus reminds us that just as we know how to give good and necessary gifts to our children, so will God do the same for us.

As I was growing up, my parents would often remind me of the fact that they were consistent and persistent in their prayers on my behalf. “Our one prayer for you,” they would say, “is that you would grow up to love, serve, and follow Jesus Christ.” And like my parents, we all must persistently pray this prayer, knocking regularly on “God’s door,” both in times of parenting peace, and times of parenting crisis.

These words from Andrew Murray are especially helpful as we ponder the need to pray for our kids: “Let us hold fast the threefold cord that cannot be broken: the hungry friend needing the help, and the praying friend seeking the help, and the Mighty Friend, loving to give as much as he needeth.”